Alien Heart, page 1
Table of Contents
NOTICES
ALIEN HEART
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
TRIGGER WARNINGS
CHAPTER ONE | Camille
CHAPTER TWO | Varrow
CHAPTER THREE | Camille
CHAPTER FOUR | Varrow
CHAPTER FIVE | Camille
CHAPTER SIX | Varrow
CHAPTER SEVEN | Camille
CHAPTER EIGHT | Varrow
CHAPTER NINE | Camille
CHAPTER TEN | Varrow
CHAPTER ELEVEN | Camille
CHAPTER TWELVE | Varrow
CHAPTER THIRTEEN | Camille
CHAPTER FOURTEEN | Varrow
CHAPTER FIFTEEN | Camille
CHAPTER SIXTEEN | Varrow
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN | Camille
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN | Varrow
CHAPTER NINETEEN | Camille
CHAPTER TWENTY | Varrow
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE | Camille
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO | Varrow
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE | Camille
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR | Varrow
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE | Camille
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX | Varrow
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN | Camille
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT | Varrow
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE | Camille
CHAPTER THIRTY | Varrow
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE | Camille
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO | Varrow
NOTICES
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be copied, used, transmitted, or shared via any means without express authorization from the author, except for small passages and quotations used for review and marketing purposes.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and incidents in this novel are fictitious and not to be construed as reality or fact.
Alien Heart Copyright © 2022 Veronica Doran
ALIEN HEART
Fated Mates of the Sea Sand Warlords
Book Eleven
By Ursa Dax
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thank you, as always, to my parents and husband who have supported this series from the beginning. A very sincere thank you to Susan who gave some wonderful feedback in the early stages and helped decide the title of this book. Thank you to every reader and new friend on this journey!
TRIGGER WARNINGS
Death of an older (adult) sibling (off-page/backstory); survivor’s guilt related to loss of sibling; traumatic childhood injury and amputation (off-page/backstory); death of parents by causes of cancer and stroke (off-page/backstory); battle scenes, blood, and violence (on-page); near-death experience (on-page); watching a mate nearly die graphically (on-page); grief; graphic sexual scenes involving non-human/alien hero and human heroine.
CHAPTER ONE
Camille
Parfait.
Perfect.
I knelt beside my alien soybeans, smiling in satisfaction at how well they were growing. After Jocelyn and I had discovered them and realized how tasty they were, we’d transplanted some of them into the garden at the settlement. The garden was really taking shape, now – it had the soybean taste-a-likes, the minty-ginger grix plants that helped ease pregnancy nausea, and the fallink plants that acted as birth control, too. We’d also started cultivating a supply of valok plants here, their round, grey-ish green discs poking up out of the sand with their black barbs.
Happy with how my bean plants were doing, their dark stalks curling healthy and strong around the little babkit wood posts Jocelyn and I had erected, I moved to the edge of the garden. The garden was against a stretch of cliff wall near to the human tent, and in a shaded spot beside it was a carved bone trowel. I picked up the small shovel, moved to my knees once more, and started digging in a place marked with another piece of babkit wood. The sand was warm, but not too hot in the shady spot as I sifted it out of the way with the trowel. The deeper I got, the cooler it was, until my trowel hit stone. I tossed the trowel aside and reached down, pulling a stone jar from the ground. Similar to how the Lavrika’s blood was stored in jars beneath the sand, I was doing the same thing with my fermented bean concoctions. This was just one jar of several, all at different stages of the fermentation process. I loosened the lid, leaning forward and taking in a deep breath through my nose.
Merveilleux.
My throat tightened with unexpected tears as the deeply savoury scent washed over me. These alien beans weren’t a perfect soybean replica, of course, but the fermented paste I’d been working on was so similar in scent and flavour to soy sauce or miso paste. Instantly, I was transported back to my parents’ restaurant in Paris, stirring a pot of Papa’s miso soup to be served alongside Maman’s entrees. When I took a deep breath again, the alien familiarity of the scent sinking into all my senses, I could practically feel them beside me – mon Papa, Hinata, on my right, ma Maman, Aurélie, on my left. I’d loved that restaurant almost as much as I’d loved them. It had been home as much as they were before they’d died.
And a little bit of home on an alien planet broke my heart as much as mended it.
I sniffed hard, no longer able to smell the paste. More tears were coming now, and my nose was getting all stuffed up.
Merde.
I replaced the lid and buried my jar again just as I noticed a shadow approaching on the sand from behind me.
“Think they’ll be alright without you?”
I stood then turned, sniffing hard and smiling at Priya. She was gesturing towards the pot I’d just buried, no doubt referring to all my jars beneath the sand.
“Oui... Je pense... I think so,” I answered, nodding firmly. They’d be safe under the sand, and I knew the other girls would check on them every once in a while during my absence.
“That’s good,” she replied, smiling back, her sunglasses glinting under the harsh sun. I knew why she was asking. Both she and I would be leaving the settlement the day after tomorrow. We were going with a small group to check out what Valeria had seen on her scanners – a potential sixth tribe, way out there in the desert, beyond the Death Plains. Priya was going as our resident cartographer, to help map out the land between here and there. I was going because I’d studied anthropology back on Earth. We didn’t know if the sixth tribe spoke the same language as us, or if they had different customs. Since Cece, our linguist, was so down and out from her pregnancy, I was the next best thing to help communicate with a new tribe.
A small thrill ran through me at the thought, making my heart flutter and my hands squeeze into fists. It would be dangerous, bien sûr, but new places, new people...
New men.
It was exciting.
I couldn’t deny it. There was a little spark of hope, deep inside, that maybe I had a mate in this new tribe. No one around here had apparently been called by the Lavrika for me. I supposed I could have tried to start something up with any unmated male. With so few women, lots of them would probably have jumped at the chance. But, if I were being honest with myself, I was just too much of a romantic at heart. I didn’t want to get entangled with someone if destiny was going to drag me away from him. If I was going to fall in love with an alien, it had to be the right one.
I just hoped I’d find that right one soon. Unlike some of the other girls, I was more than ready and willing to meet my alien mate. I adored my human friends, but there was a restless sort of loneliness in me. Sometimes when I tried to sleep, I couldn’t. It ached too much.
Besides, these aliens were très beau. Even the Bitter Sea men, who towered like Godzilla monsters from a Hollywood film, were handsome to me. They all exuded power and strength and not a single one of them was bad to look at in my opinion.
“It’s going to be weird not saying goodbye to Taylor before we go,” Priya said, bringing me back to the moment at hand.
“I know,” I replied. Taylor had left the settlement a few days ago with her own alien mate, Tok. He was the biggest lizardman of all the Bitter Sea warriors – a golden giant who looked at Taylor like the entire world hinged upon her little human axis. I’d helped nudge Taylor along during her reticence when she’d first learned he was her mate. Personally, I felt no such reticence. I loved the idea of the mate bond, of having a besotted protector who was absolutely devoted to you. I grinned to myself as I imagined what Taylor was getting up to with her alien behemoth out there. Hopefully enjoying everything that forked tongue had to offer.
“Do you want a mate?” I asked Priya suddenly. I hadn’t spoken to her about this particular subject. But more and more these days, it seemed to be dominating my thoughts.
Her dark brows rose above the lenses of her sunglasses.
“Not really. It’s not on my radar. Just trying not to die every bloody day we’re out here,” she said.
“Oui, but doesn’t that make love all the more important?” I sighed. There was something so viciously romantic about finding your soulmate when in danger. And Priya wasn’t joking about trying not to die every day. This place was as hostile as any alien planet I could imagine. If I were going to die anytime soon, I wanted at least to be deeply, brutally, poetically in love by then.
I just had to wait for the Lavrika, for fate, to catch up with my own willingness. As much as I wanted to hurry things along, I didn’t see how I could.
But maybe the trip to the sixth tribe would change all that.
J’espère...
I hope.
CHAPTER TWO
Varrow
The new woman who was obsessed with beans was back at it again.
I watched her from across the settlement as dusk descended, darkness mingling with the smoke from the evening fire. She was seated at the far end of the fire with the Gahnala of my tribe, Gahn Razek’s mate, Jozelyn, and several other new women. I could not understand her fascination with the beans. Our people did not eat them, but she seemed to delight in them. She and Jozelyn were growing them at the settlement, now, and she checked on them every day, smiling at their curling stalks and their small, pebble-like bodies. She even went so far as to mash them up, turning them into some potion that she smeared into meat each evening. For what purpose, I could not fathom. The few Sea Sand men who’d been brave enough to bite into that meat had not appeared to enjoy it. I had found the smell off-putting and had not tasted it myself. Luckily, she did not contaminate all the meat with her beans mixture. Just a small portion consumed very happily by the new women.
Now that the sun was setting, the new women were shedding their cloaks and eye shells. The beans woman used her eye shells as a sort of hairband, pushing it up her head and tucking strands of shiny black hair behind her pale, low ears. Her hair was as dark as my own, but longer than mine, coming to a blunt stop at her tiny shoulders. Someone must have said something amusing because she stopped rubbing the beans mush into the meat and she threw her head back, laughing. Her small teeth glinted in the low light, her cheeks bunching prettily.
Something lurched in me, a stinging tentacle snapping in a limb long since disappeared. The sensation distracted me from the beans woman, and I rolled my shoulder viciously, grinding my fangs. I’d lost my right arm when I was a small child. I’d lived most of my life without it.
Yet somehow, it still ached. Pain in the ether. Pain I could not locate, latch onto, or dispel.
Even though I knew it would not help, I swiped at empty air with my remaining hand, trying to brush away the sensations.
Maddening.
A boisterous cheer had me turning. Further into the settlement, Gahn Buroudei stood with my Gahn, Razek, as well as Gahn Baldor. All of them were smiling, Gahns Razek and Baldor appearing to aim their expressions of mirth at Buroudei, who stood tall, shoulders broadened with what looked like... Pride.
No. Not just pride. Bliss.
I couldn’t help but be drawn towards such a show of joy. We’d felt so little of that in the Death Plains. So much of our lives had been sharpened by danger and hollowed out by a lack of women to find companionship with. Our tribe did not have a single unmated adult female, and we unmated warriors had lived hard lives made even harder by hopelessness.
My eyes slid, unbidden, back to the laughing woman with her beans. But my Gahn’s sudden approach turned my gaze forward once more.
“Is there news, Gahn?” I asked as he stopped before me. A few other Death Plains men gathered around, obviously as curious as I was about what the cause for joy had been among the Gahns. We raised our tails to our new leader, the victor of our tribe’s recent baklok.
“Gahn Buroudei’s mate, the Gahnala Zeezee, went to the big human ship today,” Gahn Razek said. “She had something called a... an ultra zound. The new women have technology that can see right through skin and bone. Gahn Buroudei glimpsed his cubs today.”
Wait...
“Cubs?” I asked, feeling my brows fall in confusion. Gahn Buroudei had only one mate and this was her first pregnancy from what I’d heard. He had no other cubs.
“Yes, cubs,” Gahn Razek confirmed, his pale purple sight stars pulsing. “She is carrying two cubs.”
I reared back, and hisses of shock went through the small group that had gathered.
“How is such a thing possible? Do the new women have more than one womb?” I asked, startled.
Once again, I found my gaze sliding over to the human females, settling on the dark-haired beans woman.
“I do not know all the details, but no, there is just one womb,” Gahn Razek replied.
“Two cubs in one womb...” My words petered out as I tried to comprehend such a thing. These new women were so tiny. Tiny, but apparently mighty, with bodies capable of miraculous feats. No woman of the Sea Sands had ever carried more than one cub at a time. It was completely unheard of.
“And not only that,” Gahn Razek continued. “The two cubs, twinz, as they are called, are female.”
This explained all the raucous joy. Even now, Gahn Buroudei was still beaming, all traces of his usual serious nobility gone and replaced with an expression of joy so painful it almost looked like grief. New babies were always a cause for celebration among our people, females especially so since there were so few. To have two daughters at once was a blessing beyond blessings. A hope beyond dreams.
As much as the obvious joy of the moment had attracted me before, I now found myself retreating, hunching inward and away from it. Hearing about the two young girl cubs made me think of my own brother. The one I lost the day I lost my arm.
It hurt.
So I turned away.
As I stalked from the group, heading for my tent out on the open sends beyond the sheltered part of the settlement, the sound of happy conversation and laughter followed me.
Along with the scent of roasted meat.
And beans.
CHAPTER THREE
Camille
I rifled through my pack for the third time that evening, anxious anticipation about leaving tomorrow making me triple-check everything I’d packed. An extra uniform, socks, and underwear. Sunscreen. First aid supplies...
“I’ve been doing the same thing all day,” Priya said, making me jump. Up until that moment, I’d been alone in the tent I shared with the other single human women. I turned, nodding at Priya in greeting as she stepped inside, letting the tent flap fall closed. The valok candle I’d lit sent its light dancing across her features, making her brown skin glow. Her thick, long hair was tied into a knot on the top of her head and her long-lashed eyes were luminous as they met mine.
“I just don’t want to forget anything,” I murmured, turning back to my belongings. It felt weird not to pack food, but there was little point. We’d be travelling for weeks, maybe even months. All the food would be hunted and foraged on the way. I wouldn’t even bother bringing any of the fermented beans mixtures I’d made – I doubted the thick pasty stuff would last out in the heat on the back of an irkdu as we rode.
“Me neither,” Priya said. “You should see how many pens I’ve packed. I’m petrified I’ll lose them all, or they’ll run out of ink or something and I’ll be useless without them.”
I smirked at her.
“Something tells me even if that happened, one of the men with us would be able to rustle something up for you.”
Priya shrugged. “Maybe. But I don’t want to have to rely on anyone else if I can help it.”
I studied her for a moment, but she didn’t say anything else, turning to check on her own packed items. When she stayed silent, I did the same. When I was satisfied that my pack was good to go, I stood, stretching.
“Oh, did you hear about Cece?” Priya asked, glancing over at me once more.
I inhaled sharply. “Yes. I did. Pregnant with twins! No wonder she’s so tired,” I said with a small laugh. Even with her tiredness, and her morning sickness, I couldn’t help but be envious of her. She’d been the first one to get a mate, and her mate was certainly a fine specimen of an alien man. He absolutely doted on her. And now they were expecting children... Two, right off the bat! As an only child, I’d always wanted siblings, and I’d vowed to have more than one child myself one day.
“And it’s not just her,” Priya continued.
“Oui, Theresa too,” I said with a nod.
But Priya shook her head, a conspiratorial glint entering her eyes.
“Not just her, either. Melanie, Serena, and Zoey too.”
My mouth fell open. I hadn’t heard about the others. Since the girls with mates shared tents with their men, we didn’t get much chance to girl talk in the human tent. Sometimes I got a chance to speak to them at the evening fire, but not always. Mon Dieu, five of my friends expecting babies! News of Zoey was pretty huge. It meant we could also have children with the Bitter Sea men. So no matter what kind of man destiny chose for a human, it was possible to have a family. My throat got thick and hot, and I blinked over and over at a sudden onset of swirling emotion. I was so thrilled for my friends, but there was a tight squeeze of want, too. I wanted what all of them had. Mates. Babies on the way.
