Chapter 4
FOUR
DOM
As soon as the scorching searchlight hits, I pull Law-rah to my chest and scale up my back and sides. The air lies silent but the pattern of the rain gives it away: something hovers directly above us.
Law-rah gasps and I wrap my arms tighter around her. I’ll protect her with my life.
‘Defend!’ I send to Nevare and Arik. ‘Formation zeta!’
Arik and I mentally guide Nevare’s consciousness toward the light above us, as if we’re aiming a projectile. ‘Scan and prepare to immobilize,’ I order, and then brace as images flash into my mind, each one hitting as hard as a betrillium crusher in Nevare’s excitement.
‘Earth growing soil starhound barn farmhouse home!’ he crows.
“Argh,” I gasp. I might have a metal plate in my head, but psychic energies don’t care about the physical and spear straight through. I squeeze my eyes shut and grit my teeth against the onslaught.
“Breathe,” Law-rah whispers to me, her voice throbbing. This close, my meager powers sense the edges of her emotions as flickering auras. Surrounding her is a scared spiky blue, and she’s fighting to stay a calm yellow-green to tell me to: “Breathe, Dom.”
I take in a deep lungful of air, inhaling the moist heat of her outbreath. The way she looked at me inside the machine shed… she wasn’t scornful, mocking or dismissive. Nor was she frightened. She looked… concerned.
The intensity was something I’d never experienced before, and certainly never from a female.
I report, “Nevare’s found two, no, four sentient lifeforms above us. In a spaceship.”
“In a… what the hell, not more aliens!” Her spiky blue blends with an angry red core, making it purple in places. “You let one group stay and they think they can all move in!”
I chuckle. “This one knows he can stay.” I ride the bond with Nevare now, reporting what he senses as he sees it.
On board stands a bright blue-red shape, and beside him, her energies winding close to his, is his mate.
I announce, “It’s Ilia and El-len, they've returned.”
“About fracking time.” Law-rah’s energy burns hot yellow with happiness. I haven’t sampled someone’s aura like this before; it’s only been this clear when Nevare rides in my mind, not when I’m split between my physical body and my Apex’s far-reaching powers.
Nevare’s attention turns to strobe across the craft, searching for more intelligence. Two blinding bright lights of pure white glow from the cockpit.
I interpret, “They bring with them starhounds, explorers from the far reaches of the galaxy.”
“So, even more aliens after all,” Law-rah gripes, but her aura still shines a yellow as rich as the flowers springing up around the farmhouse despite the expletives in her voice. She’s truly happy.
The craft glides away over the roof of the farm house to hover over the garden.
The shelter under the shuttle’s wings shifts as well, exposing us to the driving rain again.
Law-rah lets out a small choking sob and I pull her close to maintain cover with my body as much as I can, but I suspect she's not upset over getting wet.
More overwhelmed, her energy massing in pinks, purples, and yellows.
“Nevare sees that Ilia plans to land over there,” I reassure her. “They aren't leaving again.”
“They'd better not,” Law-rah says fiercely. She wriggles against me a little to get a hand free to wipe her eyes, but she doesn't ask me to let go.
Despite many of my senses riding with Nevare, I'm acutely aware of her body pressing against mine. The generous curves of her hips rest against the top of my thighs, and I ease my legs apart slightly to help her fit closer. Her form is softer than I’d ever expected, and her sodden coverings are cold where they stick to my upper abdominal scales.
I heat my core for her, and she instantly spreads her fingers over my stomach with a soft sigh of contentment.
The sound and her touch zip straight in an arc directly to my cock and crinis, both straining against my thick carapace.
They build the pressure inside me to a peak of acute pain as they quickly get too big to be contained.
I tip my head back, biting my lip hard to stop myself from following my instincts; to take and touch and taste this female. These aren’t Parthiastock impulses! What is this?
‘Dom’s panicking,’ Nevare sends across our connection, his attention swinging to me. Drok na, I was broadcasting all over my wave brothers!
‘Is that what a female feels like?’ Arik’s voice is curious but not overly interested, and he starts cataloging my feelings. ‘Arousal pain denial frustration want longing—’
‘Stop!’ I order. This is too personal, too private, as if Law-rah’s closeness belongs to me alone somehow.
But it doesn’t, and it shouldn’t. I can’t risk distracting Nevare while he’s using his powers. I nearly groan with loss as Law-rah moves back, breaking contact with me. Her colors fade from my awareness, leaving a lingering impression of endless blue I will treasure forever.
“Come on, let's go see them, and then we'll find Arabella,” she orders, and I follow close behind her to the rear of the farmhouse where the stealth craft lands.
Arik and Nevare fall into synchronized step with me.
Arture trails behind us, likely hesitant to expose his mechanics to the downpour.
I want to press myself as close to Law-rah’s aura as I can, staying in her wake.
She opens her deadly instrument into a half-globe over her head, raising it above our heads.
When I freeze, she shrugs and walks away, the rain bouncing off the plasteek fabric and small spikes at my chest level.
I scale up to reduce the chance of damage.
In the back garden, the stealth shuttle decloaks, revealing a sleek black spaceship for transporting females on medium range galaxy expeditions as well as short interplanetary hops.
I haven’t seen this model before, and judging from the impressions collected from my wave brothers, neither have Nevare or Arik.
“What craft is that?” I ask Arture as he catches up.
His eyes go round as betrillium manacles staring at the ship, but he doesn’t volunteer a make or model. He remains utterly still, as if suddenly drenched in plascrete and immobilized in place.
“Arture?”
“Nothing.” The pilot scowls at me, scales a flat dark matt I’d never seen before. “What do you want?”
I don’t know how to deal with the sudden change in demeanor from our quiet, precise pilot, but then again I’d broken down due to the loss of our leader. “Nevermind.” Ilia will tell me, and the information doesn’t really matter.
The craft turns in place, thrusters pushing out puffs to stabilize it before it starts to descends with quiet hisses. We stay outside of the landing zone, watching.
It finally touches the earth of El-len’s garden with a creak. Within seconds, a hairline crack opens up in the side, flickering into a new configuration as the tiny blocks rearrange. It flows into a bridge, and El-len runs out.
Law-rah lets out a wild squeal and sprints toward her. “Ellen!”
“Laura!”
The two women collide, laughing and crying, El-len jumping up and down, Law-rah steady with a smile beaming from ear to ear.
All-Mother, Law-rah’s beautiful, her golden hair in drenched locks and her semi-transparent covering revealing a little of the secrets within, the shadow of some other dark clothing underneath her shirt, around her chest. Some kind of protection, perhaps?
‘Support lace straps,’ Nevare supplies for me.
‘Stop fishing in her mind!’ I snap back at him, fists bunching. A protective streak is normal for Parthiastocks when they’re assigned to a female; my instincts react like I’ve been formally given to her.
Oh, how I want to be formally given to her. Ilia could present me as a gift as soon as he reasserts himself as our leader… I shake myself. First, he has to actually get out of the ship. Judging from Nevare’s quick mind scan, he’s well and… something else.
‘Happy,’ Arik says. ‘Try it sometime, you might like it.’
I scowl at my fellow Base. ‘Someone has to be steady for Nevare.’
‘I'm not totally useless,’ Arik grumbles, but mental talk stops as Ilia himself comes down the bridge, two starhounds trotting down next to him.
“Nice to see you again,” Law-rah tells our leader, and then she gasps. “Is that Floss?”
“Yep!” El-len says happily, stroking the starhound that bounces up to her.
I don’t recognize the traveler until Nevare drops an image of the old, tired quadroped padding at El-len’s side when we first landed.
She was a starhound all along. I want to tell Law-rah that clearly there were always aliens on her planet, that the fact our nanites could translate quickly must be due to our languages sharing trade standard patterns, but I can’t approach a female for no reason.
‘Drop it in her head?’ Nevare asks me.
‘No.’ The protective streak flares up like hot betrillium branding my throat scales. What’s the matter with me?
“Right, I’d love to catch up, but Arabella is out there somewhere in the rain,” Law-rah says.
Ilia jerks his head at us, and we run to him. “Where is she?” he barks.
“Half a click that way.” I point to where Nevare tells me the dizzy-minded human and Gara’s thoughts are close together. “Gara has found her.”
“Then we help him. Get in the ship, all of you.”
At last, an order! We all pile into the sleek black interior, and our leader takes us to a spacious circular salon.
A variety of sitting and reclining couches ring the outside apart from a galley kitchen area and retractable dining table of solid angarulum, its surface glittering in the low light.
A central pillar glows with swirls of gold, pulsing in a steady beat.
The ship’s hearts, or its equivalent. Arture places his palms on it, then flinches away, staring at his metal right hand.
This is clearly a female’s vessel, and far too precious for clones.
Ilia explains, “This is the All-Mother’s personal craft, and a gift.”
What a gift it is, but Ilia’s eyes are firmly on El-len. Nevare sets an image in my mind: between them pulses a deep, thick connection as pink as El-len’s cheeks. A mating bond, and the very idea snatches the breath from my lungs.
Olorians can form mating bonds with humans?
‘Evidently,’ Arik says, again curious rather than deeply affected like me.
I crane my head to put eyes on Law-rah as El-len leads her to the seating, but Ilia stops me with a hard hand to my chest.
His eyes are unreadable as he looks me up and down, and then he barks to Arture, “Get us airborne.”
“Yes, Ilia,” the pilot responds, scuttling toward the cockpit.
Our leader takes a firm hold on my shoulder. “Are you in command of yourself?”
I let out a low breath. Am I? My head is full of Law-rah now when it should be my duties to Nevare. I managed under pressure for weeks, but feeling torn in two could be a sign of unraveling.
Evidently my silence draws out for too long, because Ilia lunges for me.