Chapter Eighteen #2
Her brain simply failed to translate for many critical moments when winged men burst into view, skimming the tops of the trees mere yards from the fortified walls where the colony defenders were ranged.
Waiting.
Mouths agape with shock and disbelief.
A frozen tableau.
And then, abruptly, Belle knew what was wrong with this picture.
“Enemy!” she screamed, struggling to get her weapon up, aligned, find the trigger with an uncooperative finger when her brain seemed to be malfunctioning. Her weapon bucked and noise erupted so close she felt concussed by it.
And then the thing she’d fired at was on top of, grabbing at her.
She screamed again when she felt fingers clawing at her scalp, her hair grew taut …
her feet left the solid platform beneath her.
Instinct, not thought, made her grab at the hair that felt like it would part with her scalp, or pull her scalp off.
She clawed at the hand she encountered, screaming, thrashing. He tried to get a better hold.
Her focus shifted abruptly to a search for help--also not an actual thought, logical process or not.
That was when she discovered two things that were terrifying.
No one seemed to notice she’d been taken--because there were writhing bodies everywhere as the flying creatures dove at the people on the walk and the colonists struggled to fight them off.
And she was well above the walkway by that time--the height. She wasn’t actually above the walkway and the man who’d grabbed her was gaining altitude.
She fought harder--mindlessly--kicking, grabbing for any part of the man that she could reach with her fingers curled into claws. He’d caught her from above, though, and that left her with little in the way of targets she could reach.
Abruptly, he hitched her upwards, catching her in a clumsy grip that included one boob and her shoulder. It brought his arm within reach, though, and she didn’t even consider anything else. She bent her head and latched onto his arm with her teeth, bearing down as hard as she could.
He yelped and snatched his skin out of her teeth.
And lost his grip on her.
She screamed as she felt herself plummeting toward the ground.
And falling.
Then she slammed into something … meaty.
“I got baby,” Torr said in a strained voice.
Belle unclenched her teeth from his …. She wasn’t exactly sure of where she’d caught him. And coiled around him to keep him from dropping her as he dove and wove and shot upwards again.
She thought she was going to puke. She managed to hang on to the contents of her stomach, thankfully, until he landed with her. She didn’t know if he let go of her, or the landing was hard enough to jar her loose. She almost puked and body slammed into the ground at the same time, though.
Thankfully not.
Someone grabbed her, yanked her up and searched her a little frantically with huge hands.
And then squeezed her so hard she felt bones crack.
“God! Annabelle!” Connor gasped in a croaking voice. “I thought Torr wouldn’t be able to catch you!”
“Foiled the kidnapper with my teeth,” Belle murmured a little drunkenly. “I might need antibiotics.”
Ryne crowded close and detached her from Connor. “I take to med place.”
Belle’s head spun as he scooped her up against his chest and turned. She squeezed her eyes closed, but when the spinning stopped, opened them again.
Ryne was crossing the cleared area beyond the colony walls, she saw, and wondered if the man that had caught her had just gone straight up or Torr had brought her back when he’d caught her.
There were bodies scattered everywhere and soldiers checking them.
A shudder went through her when she found herself looking at a dead winged man and then realized it wasn’t one of the Izun. She hid her face against Ryne’s neck. “I thought it was your people until it was too late to act,” she murmured. “I guess everyone did.”
He squeezed her reassuringly. “Dey broke away while we was fighting oddurs. I no realize dat at first. I tink dey try to get behind back to attack us. Den Connor bellow ‘Annabelle’. Break fight wid bastard, start running dis way. Tank de gods Torr stay to keep safe.” He paused and made a sound of amusement.
“An’ Annabelle gots sharp teeth an’ no mind using dem. ”
Belle tightened her hold on his neck and shuttered again. “I didn’t know I was so high.”
Thankfully she had been so deeply in shock she hadn’t been able to register her situation until it was past and Torr had caught her. “If Torr hadn’t caught me ….”
“I would hab. He only get dere jus’ before me. I no wuz gonna let my baby be hurt.”
There were so many hurt that the med techs had organized triage and basically dismissed Belle after a quick examination as only bruised and banged up.
Connor claimed her and carried her to his quarters, settled her on his bunk and left with Ryne and Torr to help with clean up and sorting.
“The fortress walls were damned useless,” Connor growled when he encountered Ryne a little later.
Ryne studied him. “No useless. Dere animals you no want close de peoples.”
Connor scrubbed a hand over his scalp, knocking debris loose and scratching the itch of trickling sweat. He was disgusting from the battle, but there was no point in trying to bathe, now, with the mess they had to clean up.
He was actually far more upset about his own uselessness--not the work that had gone into building a wall that had only protected them from lower animals that might have preyed upon the colonists.
They didn’t know that it had worked even that well.
Torr and Ryne had saved Belle. No one but another winged man could have and he didn’t have wings.
She would be dead now if he had been the only thing standing between her and death.
He couldn’t bear the thought, though, and he shook it.
Tried.
It was one of those failed things that just refused to let go.
That was twice he had failed the one person he loved most in his world.
He had always felt … almost god-like.
Because that was the way Annabelle saw him, he realized.
He was just an ordinary man--who tried really hard to protect her when there were just some things beyond his abilities to overcome.
He could have made her stay in his quarters and maybe she would’ve been safe there.
It was for damned sure she wouldn’t have been safe with him.
And there was no way he could shirk his duty to the colonists by letting them fend for themselves while he protected Annabelle.
It made him feel a little better to realize he’d yielded to Ryne’s determination to have Torr guard her and Torr’s diligence in doing so.
But not a lot.
He was never going to let go of the idea that it was his job to protect her and no one could do it but him, he thought, disgusted.
“I angry I no tink dey target Belle,” Ryne said after a while. “If you no bellow ‘Annabelle’ I no rush off right den. Den I no dere when she fall. Torr catch her. But Torr no stop de bastard from catch her and he pissed off about dat.”
Connor studied him for several moments, turning all of that over in his head. Finally, a little of his tension and self-loathing quieted. “She’s safe now,” he said in a voice gravelly with emotion. “That’s the important thing.”
“Dat’s de import ting,” Ryne agreed.
The compound still showed signs of the war fought over the colony by the time dusk settled, but everyone left off working on it and gathered to eat the food that had been prepared.
Connor went to check on Belle and, when he saw she’d recovered enough from her ordeal to join the population and their guests, he walked her back.
Verbal reports regarding the battles and the believed state of war were exchanged while they ate. “Anybody have a clue of how many of the whatevers may have escaped?” Connor asked when everybody recounted their own part of the fight and fell silent.
Terran and Roque studied him for a long moment. “Ert people,” Terran corrected him.
Connor’s lips tightened. “They don’t look like Earth people,” he said pointedly.
“I don’t either,” Terran said cooly. “Nevertheless, I was born there.”
Connor still didn’t believe him. “I never saw any winged people until we got here.”
“You wouldn’t,” Terran said. “I left Ert a hundred years after Noely’s people left. Ama-Zing’s people conquered dis planet fifty years before Noely’s people got here.”
Connor and Belle both gaped at him. “Warp drive!” Belle gasped excitedly.
Connor whipped a sharp look at her. “We don’t have those.”
“Yet,” Belle pointed out. “Didn’t. It’s not impossible that the drive was invented after our time and they beat us here. It took the first ship five generations to reach Proxima B. It only took ours three.”
“Is possible,” Terran agreed. “Happened.”
“So Earth people look like the Izun now?” Connor said disbelievingly.
Terran laughed. “I no look Izun. Dey know de difference. But we was genetically modified so dat we fit in here. Ama-Zing’s people, too. So dey also fit in--but look different.”
* * * *
The spirit of cooperation inspired by a mutual enemy vanished when Ryne and Torr whisked Belle away to the bower they’d built while Connor was finishing his rounds in checking colony security.
Belle was thrilled.
It had been magic for her when she’d lain with Ryne and Torr, given herself to them, but she’d worried since then that it was all in her head.
After all, she’d been taught in sex-Ed that 90% of sexual enjoyment was in the person’s head. Maybe 99%. But manufactured by the brain--which released the chemicals that caused arousal and the culmination of pleasure.
She knew--believed--she would feel it again because she adored them.
She just didn’t know if they had felt it at all.
Her doubts dissipated like mist before the sun, though, the moment Ryne took her into his arms and kissed her. Hunger rose up in Belle almost instantaneously, enveloped her in a haze of dizzying want.
They fought their clothing, clumsy with the heat frying their brains, and finally managed to rid themselves of enough to touch and stroke and kiss everything.
Both of them were shaking so badly by the time they landed on the pallet it took Ryne more time than they wanted to devote to it to locate the socket and the plug and to manage a connection after they had.
The end result was a gallop toward the finish line that was amazingly short for both of them and yet stupendously, explosively satisfying.
“I make … happy?” Ryne asked a little drunkenly--a lot anxiously.
“It was so good,” Belle responded breathily. “I never had sex before you and I did that first time that I actually wanted to have. I didn’t realize it could be so wonderful if you had sex with someone you loved.”
Ryne stiffened and rolled to face her. “You lub?”
Belle nuzzled her face against his. “I do.”
Ryne studied her face carefully, but he could see nothing to arouse doubt. “I lub my baby,” he said, leaning close to kiss her.
Torr didn’t want to get left out. “Lub me, also?” he murmured hoarsely, plastering himself against her back and shoving his cock between her thighs.
“Of course I do,” Belle responded huskily, yielding readily to his demand for attention and allowing him to take her to new heights of pleasure.