Bear Mountain Bride: Shifter Romance by Sky Winters (28)

CHAPTER TWO

 

Albion’s spaceship was much larger than Keandra initially thought. He led her to a room full of metallic parts. She lifted one up and admired her reflection. Her light brown skin was covered in cuts and bruises; her reddish-brown hair was unkempt from falling out of its customary ponytail during her nap. Her large, green eyes were sad and nervous-looking.

She could see why he was so keen to keep her resting. He pitied her, because she looked absolutely pitiful. Looking back up at him, she cocked an eyebrow. “So, what are we doing here? Building a robot?”

He shook his head at her, and then gave a small shrug. “Maybe something like that. Sit on that stool over there and polish for me.”

Keandra did as she was ordered and limped over to a black stool. She sat down and began polishing the metal bits with a dirty old rag. It struck her as amusing that the Gekkota were not so different from Earthlings. They did mundane tasks like anyone else. And they did them in pretty much the same way.

She looked out the window while she worked, gazing down at the gray planet below them. It resembled Earth’s moon, but it was darker, harder, and inhospitable. Turning away from it, she looked back at Albion, who was assembling the shined pieces together into something that looked more like armor than a robot.

Was he planning to attack the Hoths? That was pretty bad ass of him.

“I never thanked you for rescuing me and taking care of my leg,” Keandra said, feeling a bit sheepish now. “I mostly wanted to punch you for putting space goop in my open wound. But thank you.”

Albion lowered the pieces he was working on soldering. He did another slow, reptilian blink. “You’re welcome,” he said.

Suddenly, the spaceship rumbled and jolted upward. Keandra let out a scream. Albion dropped the armor and rushed to her, catching her before she fell. “What was that?” she asked, looking into his eyes searchingly. “Have they found us?”

Placing a finger to her lips, he shook his head. “Probably just a passing star.”

“Probably?” she asked him. “I don’t like that word. That’s not comforting.”

Another jolt, but this time he was holding her so she did not feel quite so scared.

After looking around, making sure that his metal pieces were unharmed – scattered haphazardly now, but unharmed – he gazed into Keandra’s eyes.

“I think you should go back to bed,” he said. “It is not safe for you to be in here. Anything could happen.”

She pouted, but he was right. At any point, she could be jostled and thrown into something, or have something fall into her. She was a distraction for Albion, and a danger to herself by being out of her cabin.

Albion did not open it up for discussion, but rather just carried her back down the hall to her room.

Once in the room, Albion placed Keandra on the stiff mattress. Then he did something she had not expected. He got onto the mattress with her and started kissing her. She was shocked and more than a little thrilled when she discovered that he kissed the way that she thought kisses were supposed to be. He gently ran his tongue along the edge of hers and Keandra realized, blushing at the thought, that his tongue was forked.

Whether it was because he was a dragon shifter or because he was an alien lifeform, she did not care. She simply wanted more of it. She kissed him deeply, passionately, longingly. Keandra never knew just how badly she could want him until that moment. He had seemed such an asshole at first, adding injury to injury. But she’d been wrong about him. She was not merely safe with him. She felt like she might flat out need him.

It was not long before Albion went for the fly of her cargo pants. They were barely even pants anymore; there was a long, gaping hole in her right pant leg from when Albion tended to her wounds. Carefully, as if he did not want to damage them further, he pulled them off of Keandra and let them fall to the floor. He did the same with her panties before gently bringing his fingers to her opening.

He stroked and prodded at her clit. Keandra wondered if he had any idea what it was, but from the feel of it he knew exactly what he was doing. She closed her eyes and sucked in a breath. “Oh yeah, that’s good.”

Albion smiled, glad that he was giving pleasure to the human female. After a few moments of him gently fingering her with his long, dexterous blue fingers, Keandra came. She gasped out, writhing against the hard bed’s sheets.

“You liked that?” he asked her softly.

Keandra bit her lip and nodded eagerly, indicating with that one small gesture that she wanted more.

He stood up and stepped out of his green pants and t-shirt, allowing Keandra to gaze upon his tall, lean, gorgeous body. His green scales shimmered along the rest of his naked body, ending where his forest green pubic hair began. She could now see the dragon that her dragon kept down below. His penis was long and sleek, glistening and begging for her now.

“Do you want it?” he asked her softly.

Keandra nodded again, even more eagerly.

Albion climbed onto the bed with her and went between her legs, kissing and biting her inner thighs, kneading her ass with his long fingers. She arched her back off the mattress, dizzy from want of him.

At last, when he had worked her into enough of a frenzy, Albion pressed his large, lizard-like cock into her opening. He started thrusting hard into her, penetrating deeply into the tight, warm recesses of her pussy.

It was Albion’s turn to react. He moaned deeply, feeling his way around her wet opening like an explorer unearthing treasure at the bottom of the ocean. Keandra found herself wondering, again, how he knew about sex with humans. Was Gekkota sex the same way? She found that difficult to believe, but he was so skilled that she did not find it so hard to imagine.

She lifted her legs up, wrapping them around Albion’s middle. He embraced her and gently lifted her up so she was sitting on his lap. He bounced her up and down against him. She shouted out, feeling him inside of her and never wanting to stop feeling the pleasure that came from his alien member.

Albion brought his mouth to hers once more and kissed her with his forked tongue while his penis explored her other opening. If this was an alien probe, Keandra did not mind it at all. She wanted to be probed, faster and faster.

Suddenly, he sped up his thrusts, letting out a guttural moan. He lowered her back down to the bed and then placed his hand onto her mouth, thrusting at a pace that seemed to only quicken. Keandra opened her mouth wide against his palm and screamed as she came again, feeling her wetness on his cock and the blanket beneath her. She had exploded against him, and in doing so, she caused Albion to explode in an orgasm of his own.

When it was over, she felt sticky, wet and extremely satisfied. She sat up on the bed, cinnamon hair disheveled and eyes bleary. She smiled at him. “That was amazing.”

Albion smiled back at her, petting her hair. He carefully pulled out of her but stayed close, holding her in his arms as if he did not want the good feelings to end. “You’re astounding,” he said.

They cuddled each other on the bed until they were both fast asleep.

 

* * *

 

The next morning, Keandra awoke to discover Albion at the food of the bed. He was dressed back in his uniform, his hair neatly tidied back up in its shiny green bun. From the look of things, he had been sitting there and watching her sleep for at least a few hours. It did not appear that he had just woken up.

“Get dressed,” he told her in a soft but authoritative voice.

She got out of the bed, startled by his command and by his appearance in general. Keandra had slept like a baby, and she thought that Albion had been sleeping soundly beside her as well. The last thing she remembered was hearing his soft snoring in her ear and being ridiculously happy about it.

Putting her uniform back on reminded her of her injury to her calf. Though it was well bandaged up by Albion, the effects of the strange medicine had worn off. Now she could feel the dull pain of it as she stood there, wriggling back into her tight cargo pants. The hole was still there, of course. She had not had time or opportunity to mend it. Keandra had thought they might eventually reach some sort of trading outpost, but it seemed now that Albion had other plans.

He watched her wordlessly as she dressed. She was confused and concerned by the look on his face, as though he’d lost his best friend. She knew she was not going to like the answer. “What’s the matter?”

As soon as she was dressed, Albion stood up and went to her. He took her hand in his, and then suddenly closed some iron chains around her wrist.

“Hey!” she shouted suddenly, aghast. “What the hell?”

He put the manacles around her other wrist as well, shaking his head wordlessly.

So this was why he was so upset. He had tricked her, deceived her. He was one of them.

“Forgive me,” Albion finally said gruffly. He attempted to look into her eyes, but Keandra looked away. She could not look at him anymore. He was a traitor.

Sensing that he was not going to receive any forgiveness or affection from her any longer, he took her by the upper arm and led her down the long hallway of his ship. He pushed her gently but forcefully into the copilot’s chair and pushed a few buttons, turned a few knobs. Before long, the spaceship landed back on Hoth.

Keandra glared at him, her green eyes partially obscured behind her cinnamon bangs that cut across her forehead and face in a diagonal line. Albion looked at her, and then at the floor. When the door of the ship whirred open, he led her by the bicep down the plank and onto the rocky, desolate ground of the hated planet once more.

 

* * *

 

Albion led Keandra directly to the Hoths’ main city center. As they walked, she could see thousands of ugly Hoth faces watching her, greedy and hungry. Keandra was determined to survive this. She was not going to die by the hands – or tentacles – of the Hoths. She was especially not going to die while Albion lived.

The Galactic Federation of Hoth’s leader, President Sluuurb, sat on his throne-like seat of metal and rock. He sneered down at Albion and his captive. “How much do you want for the Earthling girl?” His voice was like a low rumble. Tectonic more than anything.

“One thousand galsects.” Albion’s voice was firm, but Keandra detected some fear in it. It was possible that only she could sense it. Most likely because she knew him. Ugh, she wished she had never met him now.

Sluuurb considered a moment, his tiny cluster of bug-like eyes staring and unflinching. “Eight hundred galsects.”

“Nine hundred.”

Silence for a moment. The Galactic Federation all leaned together in their thrones, whispering like hornets in a nest. Then, finally, President Sluuurb sat up straight in his chair, eyeing Albion and then Keandra. “Nine hundred,” he said, nodding with one small movement.

Two Hothian guards came from either side and gruffly pulled Keandra from Albion. He gaped a little, looking like he wanted to say something, but it was done.

She spat on him in her anger. She was aiming for his face, but she ended up mostly getting a glob on his chest. It glistened along with his scales. She refused to look him in the eye. She despised him now.

“Come on, girl,” one of the guards said.

“You’re ours now,” the other said.

When they were not speaking, they continually made slurping sounds. Keandra was repulsed by them.

I hope you choke on your reward money, you Gekkota bastard.

 

* * *

 

The Hothian guards pulled her along down a long, sloping path that led into the bowels of the planet. Eventually, the space opened up into a humongous cavern filled with humans like her, chained like her, working. They were apparently mining dark blue rocks out of the gunmetal gray rock that made up the planet. Keandra did not know what made these rocks special, but she assumed that it must be like gold was on Earth.

Treasure.

Without another word, the guards flung her toward a waiting overseer, who glared at her, sizing her up and down. “Get changed into work clothes and grab a bucket.”

Keandra went into one of the changing stalls and took off her dirty patrol uniform. She was not sad to be rid of it, but the reason was less than ideal. Her calf was still bandaged, but she knew that her wound was going to need to be changed and redressed at some point. She did not imagine that anyone in this mine was going to care to dress her wound for her with his magical, stinging, fucking awful ointment.

Once she had stripped down to her panties and bra, she put on the work clothes that the overseer had mentioned. They were more like gray rags. A raggedy old t-shirt full of holes and a similar pair of gray shorts with torn and fraying hems. The outfit felt like it was made out of paper. The drafty mine bit at her from every side until she found herself wishing she was back in Albion’s warm bed.

She hated him so much, and she hated him most of all because she missed him. He did not deserve to be missed. But she could not keep herself from wishing that he was still with her, keeping her safe, tending her cuts and bruises. Touching her and making her feel protected and loved.

Now she was just one of thousands of Hothian slaves. She came out of the changing area, dumped her ripped-up uniform into a waiting yellow bin and grabbed a chromium bucket.

The overseer led her to the place where she was to join the line. Keandra got down on her knees and began to work, picking at the rocks and stones with a pick and her bare hands. She hoped to find some of that midnight blue stone, just so she could say she had done something today. She was going to prove her worth.

Because, if she didn’t, there was no telling what would become of her.

At the end of the day, the overseer and several other people in command came around to check all of the Earthling slaves’ buckets. One of the commanders came to Keandra and snatched up her bucket.

She scowled as she looked down into it. “Two?” The Hoth was so ugly, perhaps even the ugliest that Keandra had seen so far, that it was only a guess that it was female. Her voice was shriller than the others, and she had fashioned some ridiculous, hot pink lip balm to her… well, it wasn’t a mouth. To her facial orifice.

Keandra averted her eyes. “Yes, Commander.”

The fierce female Hoth scowled even more, making Keandra wonder if she could read her thoughts and had taken offense.

“Not enough!” the Hoth commander shouted. Before Keandra knew what was happening, the Hoth woman struck her with the back of her hand. Keandra fell to the floor. The Hoths took pleasure in shifting into their human forms when delivering brutality. Fists were not poisonous like their tentacles, but boy did they hurt.

The Hoth’s human form was perhaps even uglier than her alien form. Keandra was amazed into almost being impressed by just how horrid this Hoth looked. She threw up against the icy stone where she lay.

Shifting back into her alien form, the commander dumped the two meager rocks into the collection bin and then rolled past Keandra, tossing the bucket over her shoulder. “Better tomorrow!” she barked.

The bucket fell with a clang near Keandra’s head, rolling into her.

Keandra wiped the corners of her mouth with the back of her hand. She felt sick just being there. Around her, she could see poor souls giving their rock offerings to the guards and then being beaten. It turned out that Keandra had been one of the lucky ones. Several Earthlings were taken out on stretchers, and some of them were clearly dead.

Wherever you are now, Albion, I hope you’re fucking happy. I hope you’re so happy you choke.

CHAPTER THREE

The rest of the earth week continued on in the same way. Keandra rose early every morning in the small and packed sleeping quarters, feeling like she had not gotten any sleep at all. She showered in an ice cold, tiny shower and then dressed in her assigned rags. Every day, she worked until her back felt like it was about to snap in half and every evening she was beaten for not uncovering a satisfactory number of stones.

She started to notice, early on as she was working and living in these awful conditions, that something was growing in her belly. She might have worried that she was possessed somehow, after one of the bouts with her captors, but the strange sensation combined with the sickness and headaches that she had been experiencing indicated that it might have been something else altogether…

“Are you pregnant?” one of the other captive Earthlings asked, gasping at her one day while they worked side by side.

Keandra’s face flushed and she looked down at her stomach. This all but confirmed it. “Possibly,” she said shyly. She typically did not speak with her fellow workers. Mostly because they got beaten for it.

The other Earthling continued to gasp a bit, shocked and maybe a bit horrified. “You better not them know, or they will treat you worse. I’ve seen people die in here because they were carrying a baby… But it’s already so obvious.” She said this last part sympathetically, like Keandra might be a lost cause.

There was nothing to be done with this information, however. She could not go see a doctor about it. She could not contact Albion and let him know that he might be a father someday soon. Not that she wanted to include him in this, being that she was only here in this place because of him. But still. She couldn’t even if she wanted to.

Instead, with this little secret growing and moving inside of her belly, she went to work each day and got pummeled each evening.

One day about two weeks after starting in this foolish errand of a mine, the door to the shaft opened and who the fucking hell should appear but Albion. He searched the room with his eyes, finally catching sight of her.

He smiled at her.

She glared at him.

He came over to her as though the glare was not enough reason for him to stay away. “Hello again, Keandra Calhoun,” he said.

“Are you here to betray me again?” Keandra asked him icily.

Albion frowned.

“Don’t talk to me,” she said. “I did not ask for you to come here. You must feel so high and mighty to be able to come back here and see me suffering…”

“The Hoths hired me to come command the mines in this compound,” Albion tried to explain.

“So we’re going to be coworkers now?” She was glaring so hard at him that she wondered if her face might get stuck that way. “Fabulous.”

She hoped he could understand sarcasm. He may have been an alien, but he was not stupid.

With that, she turned from him. She did not want to let him hurt her again. The best way to prevent that was by not letting him get close again.

He kept his distance from her, which Keandra was both thankful for and resentful of at the same time. She did not want him anywhere near her and she also felt oddly comforted by his presence. Damn him, she thought once while glancing over to look at him. It was so much easier to be mad at him when he was not with me. She did not know what she would even want to say to him now, but she wanted to say something.

Possibly, she might want to tell him about the baby.

There was no doubt in her mind now that that was what it was.

Sex with Albion had, on the whole, been not unlike sex with an Earthling man, so why should his baby be unlike an Earthling baby?

She could feel his eyes on her as she worked. She continued to feel him watching her, taking a keen interest in her progress. He never spoke to her, but she could tell that he had asked the other overseers about her because they looked at her even more weirdly now.

His presence in the mining compound did not diminish their violent cruelty towards her however. Every evening, like clockwork, they still beat the shit out of her, leaving her bloodied and retching on the floor.

As she felt his eyes on her throughout this, Keandra wondered if he was guilty. She hazarded a quick glance to see if he seemed to have any feeling at all about her now. Any kindness left in him towards her. He had healed her, made love to her, and cried when he betrayed her… Surely he must have felt something.

But even if he did feel something, he kept silent and did not stop the beatings, either of her or any other Earthling.

He just went around, stoic, listening to the reports by the overseers. Keandra wondered if his betrayal of her had left him dead inside.

If so… Good.

 

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

As time went on, Keandra felt more and more certain Albion was looking out for her. Now, whenever one of his underlings kicked the shit out of her, he exchanged harsh words with them and that overseer eased up a little. It was not completely saving her from attacks, but it was an improvement. Slowly, Keandra started to trust him again. She was not going to fuck him again or anything, but she appreciated him being around. Now that he was actively attempting to make things better for her, she could forgive him.

A little.

She was not sure that she would ever be able to fully forgive him.

There was only one supervisor Albion was not able to control and protect Keandra from. He was a gargantuan Hoth named Leeroi. He was black and red like a spider, with long dreadlocks both in his Hoth form and in his humanoid form. He had the appearance of someone from the Caribbean back on Earth. He thought he was tough shit and the sexiest Hoth. He hid his pride not at all.

And he had his sights set on Keandra.

He started overseeing her work more than anyone else’s. He took it upon himself to be the one in charge of her, whipping her with a long black whip that resembled his long, black tentacles.

It stung almost as much as she assumed the poison did.

On one such evening, after reprimanding her for the four pieces of Hothian jewels that she unearthed, he tucked his whip back into the belt of his uniform and leered down at her. Keandra writhed on the ground, spitting up blood. If her baby was still with her, it would be a miracle, though she supposed that Gekkota spawn was strong.

Albion was nowhere to be found.

Shit. And I was just starting to like him again.

Suddenly, Leeroi grabbed Keandra by her hair and yanked her up from the ground. He held her still, close to his large face. He sniffed her, his irises expanding and contracting as if moving in and out of the light. “Clean up and meet me back in my chambers. That is an order.”

With that, he pushed her away from him and moved along the line of Earthling slaves, checking on their work and then whipping them accordingly. Keandra collected her empty bucket and her pick, making sure that the area she had been working in was devoid of dust or pebbles, and then headed to the back rooms. She put her bucket and pick in the room where she slept with ten other slaves, then quietly went into Leeroi’s bedchamber.

His room was the size of the room that she slept in, but it was clear right away that he did not have to share his room with anyone else. A large bed sat in one corner of the room, covered in blankets of jet and scarlet. Keandra definitely did not feel comfortable sitting on his bed, so she chose his desk chair instead. He had a computer device on the table there, but it was neither open nor on and she was not about to do something that would anger the most aggressive overseer.

Keandra wished like anything that she could send telepathic messages to Albion. She did not see him in the room while Leeroi was attacking her. She wondered if Albion would even be able to do anything against a slave driver such as Leeroi. It was more than likely that the Gekkota would simply be stripped of his rights as a supervisor. And where would that put her? Back at square one.

All of a sudden, the door to Leeroi’s chamber zipped open and the Hoth came into the room, letting the door zip shut behind him. He came toward Keandra. Not wasting time, he grabbed her by the hair again as if that was the only way he knew how to grab a woman. He pulled her out of the chair and then threw her down onto the floor in front of him. Awkwardly, she sat up on her knees.

That’s when she realized that that was exactly the position that he wanted her in.

He unbuttoned the front of his regulation uniform and pulled out his long, thick Hothian member.

Keandra felt her stomach turn. Leeroi massaged the back of her head a moment, running his sticky fingers through her hair. Her ponytail was gone; the tie that held it back lost amongst the rubble somewhere down in the mines. Lost like she was now.

She closed her eyes and felt hot tears falling as he began to push her head closer to him, bringing her face up to his crotch. His sticky fingers were worse when she felt them on the back of her neck, hot and moist from something she did not even want to guess at.

The door to the chamber suddenly zipped open again. Keandra tried to crane her neck to see who it was – rescuer or added rapist – but Leeroi continued to hold her tightly with her face inches away from his cock.

“Stop it right now, Commander Fkassrt!”

Albion Pagoda. Oh my god, thank you.

Keandra kept her mouth shut tight so Leeroi wouldn’t have the chance or satisfaction of getting it around him. Thankfully, Albion posed enough of a threat for him to freeze.

“Let the girl go,” Albion instructed, speaking calmly but authoritatively.

Leeroi let out a quiet snicker. “By whose orders?” he challenged. “You are not in charge here, Gekkota. So why don’t you slither along back to your cave?”

For an excruciating moment, Keandra worried that Albion had been bested. It was quite possible that he was acting above his station. As a foreign species to the planet, her Gekkota probably did not have authority over the Hoth who stood uncomfortably before her.

But then something wonderful happened.

Albion produced a piece of parchment from one of his cargo pants pockets. He cleared his throat softly and read from it. “By the authority of the Galactic Federation of Hoth, Albion Pagoda is granted full command of Compound Z Hydra 7. Signed, President Sluuurb.”

Leeroi finally released his grasp on Keandra. As soon as she was freed just the slightest bit, she moved away from him, crawling across the slippery metal floor on her hands and knees, calf screaming in pain. She crawled to Albion, closer to him than to Leeroi but not quite next to him. She did not know what the outcome of this would be, and she was not sure she wanted it to include riding off into the sunset with her betrayer.

“You made that up,” Leeroi said in a growl. “You’re shitting me.”

Albion held the parchment out for him to look at. Leeroi snatched it from his hands. He read it over quickly, getting angrier and angrier by the second. “But you’re a Gekkota. A dragonling. You’re scum. Why would anyone put you in charge of anything?”

Keandra’s rescuer simply shrugged. “Seniority.”

This was the last straw for Leeroi. He flew into an all-out rage, tearing up the parchment and shifting quick as a flash into his disgusting, tentacle-covered form.

It was actually hard to call it a form. A globule was not a form so much as a mass. Keandra felt like retching whenever she saw the Hoths’ true shape, and Leeroi took the cake when it came to repulsive. You and that female Hoth should get together. Actually, don’t. You can kill civilizations with that amount of ugly.

In the blink of an eye, Albion shifted into his dragon form. He retained his blue and green hues, but became enormous in size. He filled the room, he was so big, and Keandra wondered if he was about to completely burst out of the mine. She assumed that he could control his size… As it was, Albion’s head would have hit the ceiling if he did not have a long neck. He slithered and scurried around the room like a snake-like salamander. His forked tongue moved in and out of his jaws every now and then, sniffing out the smaller Hoth.

Keandra stayed where she was, protected as she sat on her legs between her dragon’s hind quarters. He kept her safe there, like a parent protecting its egg. Leeroi the Hoth darted about the room, poisonous tentacle stretched out and at the ready. He was trying to find a good position so he could use it, but Albion moved so much and was so massive that the amoeba-like alien looked more confused than anything.

Surging forward in a misguided attempt to sting Albion’s back leg, Leeroi decided to attack Keandra instead. He lurched toward her, and his tentacle whipped at her. She jumped out of the way just in time. Meanwhile, Albion let out a small blast of flame directly at Leeroi’s back.

The Hoth let out a petrifying scream that sounded like someone drowning. He was liquid and Albion was turning him into gas with his heat.

“Keandra,” Albion suddenly boomed down at her.

She stared up at his huge head. He looked the same and different at once. She was frightened of him, even though she knew that she should not be. She was glad that he was on her side.

“Leave this room. Go join the others. I will find you.”

Keandra did as she was told. She stayed on her hands and knees, rushing to the door before finally standing up. She ran to the room where the others normally slept. They had obviously all been disturbed by the violent sounds coming from Leeroi’s chamber.

She hid under the tables along with them, watching the door for any movement that showed it was over. The entire mine began to shake as the hallway lit up with Albion’s flames. He had torched the whole chamber.

Leeroi was toast.

When the door to the slaves’ room opened, Albion’s head appeared in the doorway. Actually, it was only his snout. That was all of him that could fit at the moment. Keandra had never been so happy to see a nose in her life.

“Keandra, hop on my back. It is time to leave,” he said, and then hissed like a snake. “The rest of you, get out of here any way you can. Go fast and be smart while the Hoths are distracted. Leave this place. Leave this planet. Go.”

There was no argument there. The slaves all started running in different directions, all of them going toward whichever exit they could think of.

Keandra hesitated. “Why should I go with you?” she asked him. “What makes you safer than all the others, when you lied to me and gave me to these beasts?”

Albion repositioned himself so his large, golden eye was all that could be seen in the doorway. Despite its size and the fact that a fierce dragon was attached to it, the eye was gentle and caring… and remorseful.

“It was foolish of me,” he said. “I will work every day to regain and keep your trust… But we can discuss this later. Please climb onto my back, Keandra. I will keep you safe because I love you.”

All of the wind was knocked out of her when she heard Albion say those words to her. She had not expected to hear him say that, especially not while he was a gargantuan dragon. Currently all she could see was one of his eyes. But somehow, that was enough.

Not wanting to ruin the moment by speaking and likely saying something stupid due to her emotions, Keandra simply gave a curt nod and went to the doorway. He graciously moved out of the way so she did not ask his eye to move. She climbed aboard his spikey back and wiped the tears from her eyes.

What a day she was having.

Once she was safely on his back, Albion swiftly scurried through the gaping chasms of the mine, not caring as his large body crashed through walls and ruined everything the Hoths had built in his path. What his head and broad shoulders did not break, his tail smashed. At last, they made it to the top of the mineshaft. They both felt like they could breathe again.

The Galactic Federation of Hoth was sitting up there in their throne room or whatever they wanted to call it. They were about to be cinders, Keandra guessed. But Albion did not set them on fire. He did not even grumble with smoke. He just narrowed his reptilian eyes at President Sluuurb, who cowered under his throne-like seat as if he did not expect a dragon shifter might possibly shift into a dragon when given power.

Really, this was all Sluurb’s fault. Keandra did not expect that he would be president – or alive – for much longer.

After scaring the Hoth leaders sufficiently, Albion flapped his great winged forearms and took to the sky – which meant that he took the roof off of the Hoths’ mining compound. The walls and roof fell all around Sluuurb and his constituents. Keandra held on tightly to Albion’s spikes. She hazarded a curious glance back as they flew ever upward. Sluuurb was not dead, but he was definitely pissed off.

 

* * *

 

After flying up high above Hoth, circling around until they were well enough away from the cluster of mining compounds, Albion finally landed roughly atop a rocky mountain top. Keandra slipped off of him as soon as she could, hugging herself as she watched Albion’s dragon shape languidly twist and contort back into his more humanoid form. There was no denying it; both as a dragon and as a blue-green human, Albion Pagoda was a sexy badass.

Keandra was not ready to just completely forgive him, however. It would take a lot more than sweet words at a tense moment to make her forget what Albion had done, had allowed to happen… He never struck her, but he might as well have.

There was a cave nearby atop that mountain, and as it started to rain thick, heavy, cold raindrops, Albion wordlessly ushered her inside of it, protecting her even still. Even though she had not responded to his love confession, or even thanked him.

Her resolve was firm. But her gray rags were basically nothing against the cold, so she took advantage of his warmth when he wrapped his arms around her and sat with her upon the cave floor.

“What are we doing here, Albion?” she asked him through shivers. “Why did you bring me here?”

He looked at her, slow blinking. Keandra felt a pang when she saw that damned lizard blink. Such a stupid thing to have missed. “I did not plan to come here,” he said calmly. “I just wanted to get you away from there… I suppose I did not have a plan at all, except to save you.”

She narrowed her eyes at him a little. “You’re not planning to hand me over to the next Hoth you see are you?”

Albion laughed slightly.

“Because, if so, your plan is pretty shitty.”

Albion stopped laughing and gazed at Keandra, petting her cheekbone slightly with the knuckles of his right hand. “I will never hand you over to anyone. Please believe me. I love you and I will do anything to keep you safe. It was an idiotic mistake driven by greed and a false sense of entitlement. As soon as you were taken from me, I knew it was a mistake. I worked hard to make sure that it was rectified. Please… Keandra.”

He sounded like she was not the only one who had been wounded on this crummy planet. She looked him in the eyes and then realized that she had forgotten all about her vow to never look him in the eyes again. Ever since his return, she had been suppressing her feelings for him. She had secretly longed for his touch, and that was only enhanced knowing his baby was growing inside her. That was not the action of someone who was never going to forgive him. That was the action of someone who still cared deeply for him.

“I was not myself,” Albion went on, trying to explain himself so that she might understand. “I was mind controlled by the Hoths for years. Ever since I came here, working for the Resistance… Ever since they captured me and made me work for them as their dragon slave. It was love that broke their control, Keandra. It was my love for you that set me free from my mental shackles.”

Saying that reminded him that she still wore shackles on her wrists and ankles. Using his tremendous strength, he set her free. Bringing his lips to hers, he set her spirits free.

CHAPTER FOUR

Feeling delirious from her rescue still, Keandra eagerly kissed Albion. He hungrily moved his tongue around her mouth as though every last inch needed to be felt, tasted, and explored. She could feel his sharp teeth against the tip of her tongue and it caused her panties to become wet. Such a man could not really be her hero. Such a man could not really love her. Not really. Right?

The more they made out, the hornier he became. His erect cock nudged against her leg, and he pushed her legs apart. They fell back together onto the floor and he lay atop her, humping her slowly and sensually through their clothing. In one quick, fluid movement he had her shirt off of her, letting it fall somewhere in the corner of their cave.

“I’m not attached to that,” she gasped between kisses.

He smirked and removed her shorts and panties, tossing them in the same direction.

“I’m not attached to those either,” Keandra said, inviting him to continue by undoing his pants and pulling out his cock.

Albion, to her surprise, moved away from her hands and mouth. “I am not going to fuck you like that piece of shit wanted to,” he said. “You deserve better than that… You deserve this.”

Suddenly, he took hold of her waist and slammed his cock into her. She let out a yelp and then gasped, combing her fingers through his thick, dark green hair. Albion held her still and undid her bra with one hand, letting it fall somewhere in the darkness beside them. He kicked his pants off and then she grabbed ahold of his shirt, liking the feel of it in her hands as he continued to thrust himself inside of her in big, shattering movements.

“Ahhhh, god, Albion,” Keandra shouted, throwing her head back a little and letting it brush against the cold cave floor. “I forgive you. I forgive you!”

“Yeah?” he growled, fondling her breasts. He seemed to notice as well as she that they had grown since last they made love. He tilted his head a little but he did not ask about it. Possibly he did not want to embarrass or anger her by asking. She appreciated him even more for that.

“You like this more than Leeroi?” he asked her, grunting as he fucked her, clamping his eyes shut and starting to sweat.

Keandra felt her body reaching orgasm. She felt like she might explode. “Yes!” she screamed, making the cave echo with sounds of her lust and pleasure. “Better! Ahhhh, this is better!!”

Smirking, Albion licked his thumb and then brought it to her clit, where he stroked and pressed his thumb against her most sensitive spot. Keandra opened her mouth in a silent scream as she came against him, wrapping his big cock in her tightness as the walls of her pussy expanded and contracted around him.

Albion thrust faster and faster until he came inside her, filling her up again with the warm, tingly feelings that she had so enjoyed before when they made love on his spaceship. Before her world went to shit, or the Galactic Federation just resumed its operations as usual, whichever way one wanted to look at it.

He pulled out of her and cuddled her a moment on the cave floor, kissing her and petting her cinnamon hair. She stroked his forest of green chest hair and gazed lovingly into his eyes.

“I love you,” Keandra confessed. She could not deny it or be angry at him any longer. He had saved her life twice. Surely that could cancel out one deception. “I’m sorry I did not say it sooner; it’s just that you betrayed me.”

Albion kissed her deeply. “It doesn’t matter,” he said, pressing his forehead against hers. “It does not matter that you took your time. As long as it is true. I cannot blame you for being uncertain and wanting to wait.”

She shook her head and then nodded, laughing a little at her apparent indecisiveness. “It matters to me. I should not have waited. I forgive you, Albi.” She stroked his green beard on his pointed chin. “What matters now is that you corrected your mistake, and you won’t ever do it again.”

He nodded, smiling at her as he gazed into her large green eyes. He was so smitten with her that the word Smitten was practically written there on his face. “As I promised, I will spend the rest of my life protecting you and loving you.”

Keandra beamed at him, and then she shook her head a bit. “Not just me.” She took one of his hands and brought it down to her lower belly, where the little dragon-like baby was swimming around. Albion felt its movements and his gold eyes widened. His mouth fell open and she laughed and kissed him for it. “Surprise!”

 

* * *

 

They made out for a while longer, enjoying each other on the floor of the cave without even caring about how uncomfortable it was. Once they were feeling hungry and uncomfortable enough to want to move, Albion got up and, taking her hands, pulled Keandra up with him.

“What is there to eat around here?” she asked him. “I’ve patrolled around here a lot, but I can’t say I’ve ever been in the mountain caves of Hoth.”

Albion thought about it. “I have flown around here enough to know that there is a stream around here. There are some lifeforms in it that are pleasing to taste.”

Keandra smiled wryly at him.

“What?”

“Sometimes you sound like an alien. It makes me remember that you can be shaped like me and you can speak English like me, but that doesn’t mean you are in fact like me.”

Albion blinked at her slowly.

She let out a laugh. “Just go and get some of these lifeforms. …Please.”

When he went away to hunt, Keandra huddled into a corner of the cave, doing her best to take up the least amount of space and so warm herself. She could hear as his insanely long wings took flight, flapping like a thunder clap as he rose higher and higher, flying away.

Keandra’s stomach growled. She could tell that her baby dragon was hungry as well, because he was extra restless. Thankfully, Albion was correct about the stream and he arrived back at their cave within the hour, holding two large fish-like creatures in his hands. They were not moving any more. She was tremendously grateful for that.

They ate together in silence, mainly because they were too hungry and the food was too delicious for words. Albion had taken it upon himself to cook the creatures with his fire breath. Keandra kept finding new reasons to want to keep him around. “If you can do that whenever you want, then we should be nice and toasty in here tonight,” she remarked, licking her fingertips as soon as her creature was in her belly to be appreciated by Albion’s spawn next.

He smiled at her as he gulped down the last of his meal. “And so we shall,” he said.

They cuddled each other in the spot in the cave that Keandra had picked out and sure enough they did not need a blanket. Albion kept them both warm and cozy.

 

* * *

 

The next morning, they were awakened by footsteps. A Hoth in its more humanoid appearance stepped into the cave. He had clearly not been expecting what he found and quickly pulled out his communicator to alert his compatriots in the area.

“Earthling and Gekkota spotted in a cave! Send reinforcements! Gekkota is—”

Albion smacked the communicator out of his hands with his long tail as he grew and grew into his dragon form. Keandra ran from him, toward the Hoth. She jumped onto him and her fists started flying.

The Hoth fought back, grabbing onto her arms and attempting to sting her with his poison appendage. She nearly got stung a few times, but Keandra was too tough and too pissed off to give this bastard the chance. She was too fast for him and kept clobbering him in the face. But Albion was uncomfortable seeing her in a precarious position no matter how fierce she was.

Chuckling after a few moments of letting her have her fun, Albion picked her up with a claw and placed her gently onto his back. “That’s enough now. Let me handle this.” With one puff of flame from his scaly lips, the Hoth was nothing but a charred stain on the stone floor.

“His friends aren’t going to find anything here,” Albion said to her in a low growl. “Not even him.”

With that, he left the cave at a run, growing ever larger now that he was not confined to any space. He took off and was soon up in the air.

“Now what do we do?” she asked him, hugging herself with her arms and holding on tightly to him with her legs. She was down to just her panties and bra after electing to sleep in them instead of naked. She was quite glad she was not naked.

“Now we look for the Resistance,” Albion said calmly. “They will be able to help us. And we can start with getting you a new, better uniform.”

Albion flew around high in the air above Hoth while Keandra sat atop him, marveling at the harsh planet’s prettier aspects. She had no idea that Hoth had things like waterfalls and forests. She supposed she never had a chance to look when she was secretly surveying the area for spies and other such enemies.

Finally, she spotted a small encampment near the foothills of some mountains. “There! There!” she cried, pointing.

Albion craned his neck toward her somewhat and then looked in the direction she was indicating. He began his descent, careful to go down there slowly so as not to arouse suspicion from either the Hoths or the people down below who surely did not know that the dragon was on their side.

If it was, indeed, the Resistance.

A cluster of people came out of the tents and pointed up in awe as Albion came down to meet them. They seemed scared instead of hostile. They were wearing the white and blue uniforms worn by the Resistance. Two of them, the apparent leaders, wore shining blue stars on their chests. One was male, one was female. Both were humanoid, though the female was clearly not from Earth. Her hair was purple and her skin was chartreuse.

As soon as they landed, Keandra slid off of Albion’s back and he shifted back into his humanoid form to greet the strangers who were their friends. “Greetings,” he said. “I am Albion Pagoda and this Earthling here is Keandra Calhoun.”

“Staff Sergeant Calhoun,” she corrected with a smile. “I work with the Earth taskforce that has been assigned to monitor activities to and from Hoth.”

The chartreuse woman stepped forward and offered her hand to Keandra. “I am Dehneese Dravrez from Bortho,” she said. She had kind, black eyes. “And this is Ggregg Underwhood from Plythar.”

Ggregg stepped forward and shook her hand. “I lived on Earth for many years,” he said with a wink. He had sandy, dirty blond hair and blue eyes. Three of them. Keandra could practically hear Albion’s jealousy. It amused her that merely talking to another alien gentleman incited such annoyance and unease in him. She thought it was cute for the moment, but she would not let it fly if it continued and caused him to be rude.

No hero of hers would be a rude asshole to their friends.

Fortunately, Albion was not like other guys she had been with – duh. That was an understatement.

He proved himself to be worthy of her continued love and adoration when he greeted them in turn. “It is wonderful to meet you at last,” he said, shaking each of their hands and offering them a genuine smile. “Like the Staff Sergeant here, I worked as a patrol officer, but I recently fell into a bit of trouble and was held captive by the Hoths. They had me under mind control.”

The two resistance leaders gasped. “How dreadful!” Dehneese exclaimed.

“Horrible,” Ggregg concurred with a nod.

“Well, you are with us now,” Dehneese said kindly, gesturing for them to follow her into the main tent.

It was a large, pinkish, octagonal-shaped tent, much bigger on the inside. There were tables and chairs set up within, making the headquarters of the Resistance appear, well, like a headquarters! Keandra felt oddly relieved by this simple sight. She found that she could not stop smiling. At last, she and her dragon would be safe.

Sort of, at least.

Ggregg directed them to some chairs by a desk that was clearly his, due to the placard with his name on it.

Albion and Keandra sat with Ggregg. Dehneese brought over a chair and sat with them, crossing her long, yellow legs and appearing to be quite eager to discuss things with them.

“We heard about a mine being torched last night,” Ggregg said, looking from Albion to Keandra. “Your doing?”

The pair nodded, proud of themselves. “A Hoth got a bit too rough with my girl here,” Albion said.

She blushed and smiled, glad to hear him call her that.

Dehneese made a sympathetic face at her, tilting her head a little. “How long have you been impregnated?” she asked, sounding concerned.

Keandra brought a hand to her belly and gently rubbed it, gazing down at it just as the baby kicked. “About a month now, I guess… It’s hard to tell time here.”

The Resistance leaders smiled at her. “We will take good care of you. It won’t all be easy, but it will be heaps better than what you have experienced no doubt,” Ggregg told her.

 

* * *

 

It was wonderful to be sleeping in a bed again. There were plenty of beds in the Resistance’s tents, but Keandra still elected to sleep beside Albion in one. She found that she slept best when his strong, protective arms were around her. Her belly had for so long prevented her from being able to get fully comfortable but now, in the bed with him, safe at last, she slept like a baby herself.

The rebellion turned out to be thousands strong. It was impossible to meet all of the members because so many of them were out on missions at any given time. Whenever some were on the ground, carrying out one task, thousands more were in the air, attacking that way. Ggregg and Dehneese did not assign Keandra to any tasks that involved endangering herself. At first, she was irritated and frustrated that they were coddling her, but she knew that they meant well.

“No one has had a baby in the Resistance,” Dehneese told her once, when she was sitting with her at the monitoring desk. “As far as I know, no one has had a baby for years. Except for the Hoths, of course, who breed like flies.”

Keandra pouted a little at that. She was dressed in one of the uniforms of the Resistance, and she was stuck doing a desk job. Never before had she done something so boring. She felt humiliated. However, now it made sense why they wanted so badly to keep her from going out and risking anything. The Resistance needed more allies and could not afford to lose any of their new recruits. Not even the in utero ones. “Just promise me that as soon as this baby is out of me and I’ve recovered, I can join you in every capacity.”

Dehneese nodded. “Sure, of course.”

A light suddenly started flashing on the monitor. An enemy ship was approaching the Resistance forces they had sent up. “Shit!” Keandra shouted. “Enemies approaching!”

She and the other ground leaders were fairly safe in their protective alcove in the foothills, but Albion was out there with the patrol group. Keandra wished that she had a direct communicator with him so she could make sure he was okay. As it was, she had the main channel, which had to be good enough.

“Find him,” Dehneese told her, understanding immediately what brought on Keandra’s specific sense of urgency.

Keandra lifted the communication device to her mouth. “Come in, patrol units. This is HQ. Come in, patrol units.”

For a long, intense few minutes there was no response. The radio silence almost drove Keandra crazy. She and Dehneese looked each other in the eye, holding their breath.

He has to be okay, Keandra thought, as though pleading to some unknown, made up deity in her mind would save him. He is going to be okay…

“Patrol units,” a slightly broken voice said back through the machine.

Keandra sat forward in her seat. “Albion?!” she cried. “Come in, Albion?”

Dehneese breathed a sigh of relief but just hearing one phantom voice was not enough for Keandra. Her heart was racing and she felt like she was going to be sick. Reaching over, Dehneese took her hand and squeezed it.

“I’m sure he’s fine,” she said softly. She sounded just as hopeful as Keandra wanted to be.

Suddenly, there was loud crackling on the intercom. “Yeah, hello? Hello? Come in, Keandra at HQ. This is Albion. I’m safe. We made it into a cave.”

Grinning at Dehneese, Keandra felt tears in her eyes. “Great, Albion. Be safe. Help is on the way.”

She hugged Dehneese and then they got to work rounding up some troops to go out and find the patrols. The troops were armed with heavy duty blasters so they could attack any incoming ships. Keandra wished like hell that she could go out there with them and bring her Albi back.

She wanted to be his hero for a change.

CHAPTER FIVE

From her place inside the tent, Keandra watched as the ground troops returned, carrying their large blaster guns. They were also carrying several people back on stretchers. Keandra gasped as soon as she noticed that, checking each one with nervous eyes to make sure that Albion was not one of those sad souls. Fortunately, she did not see him.

Suddenly, there he was. He was walking toward her, blaster over his left shoulder, uniform torn in a few places, grin on his face. She had never seen such a sexy sight in her entire life. Getting up from her seat, she ran to him, jumping into his arms.

He dropped his gun and it clattered to the stone floor with a sound of galactic plastic. They kissed each other passionately, deeply, as though they had never kissed before and they wanted to experience every facet of it at once.

Keandra wished that their kissing could go on forever, but outside there was a war going on. Albion carefully let her back down onto the floor and went with her to the desk with the monitors and the controls for the ground weapons that the Resistance had hidden within the planet’s soil or up in the mountains behind the flora of Hoth.

The Resistance had been on this planet for years; long enough to make a full operation in order to fight back when need be. And need usually was.

Albion hit a bunch of switches and suddenly the headquarters became an armored tent. The cloth changed form and became hard, heavy plastic like the weapons of the Resistance. It was not Keandra’s grandmother’s plastic. It was engineered by an interplanetary scientific coalition. Fancy plastic.

“Get down!” he suddenly shouted, essentially pushing Keandra until she was on the floor. She scooted under the desk for some extra cover.

“You get down, too!” she shouted up at him. “I am not going to raise this baby without his father.”

Albion looked down at her and smiled. He opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted by a blast of laser beam fire coming through the front of the tent. All at once, all Keandra could see was blue and green flames. All she could hear was shouts and screams. She covered her ears and huddled down into a ball in an effort to protect herself. Her heart was racing and so were her thoughts.

She could not see Albion anymore. All she could see was explosions and death.

 

* * *

 

When the enemy fire finally subsided and the Hoth starship flew away from their encampment, the survivors of the blast crawled out of their hiding places. Keandra awkwardly crawled out from under the desk and got to her feet. She had a gash on her right forearm from some fallen debris, but she was otherwise unharmed.

At least physically.

As she was making her way to the group of other mostly-unharmed people, she discovered Albion. He was lying on the floor, eyes closed and a huge and bleeding wound on his upper left shoulder.

“Oh, no no no,” Keandra cried, rushing back down onto her knees and taking his head in her arms. “Don’t do this to me, Albi. You don’t get to be hurt. I’m always the hurt one. I was starting to live with it.”

Dehneese caught sight of her and hobbled over to her. She had been slightly banged up and was now wearing a bandage around her head, but otherwise she had made it out in one piece. She knelt beside Keandra. “I will get anything you think you may need. Let us take him to the hospital tent.”

“Is it clear yet?” Keandra asked her, panic in her voice. “Is it safe to go out?”

Dehneese nodded shortly. “As safe as it will ever be here. They know where we are now; we’re going to have to relocate as soon as possible.”

Together, the two ladies lifted Albion. Some of the other Resistance fighters brought over a stretcher and they all carried Albion from the room. Well, the others mostly carried him. Keandra was instructed to just follow them.

There was no sign of Ggregg, which she supposed was a bad sign…

Once they got into the hospital tent, it was mass hysteria. The amount of injured was high and there were not enough beds, let alone enough nurses and doctors, to be able to adequately care for the wounded. Some of the medical crew were hurt themselves. The blasts had been brutal.

Keandra found a space for them that would have to be big enough. Albion groaned on the stretcher and they laid him down on the ground where Keandra directed. Then she knelt at his side once more.

Dehneese went and got bandages and some of that Vlwarx stuff that was all the rage. Keandra took the bottle and poured a generous amount onto his gaping wound.

Albion sat bolt upright and shouted a slew of curse words in some alien tongue. Keandra couldn’t help but smile. “Oh, sorry,” she said. “Vlwarx may sting a little.”

Realizing what was going on and who he was with, he grabbed Keandra and pulled her to him. The godawful medication got onto the top of her uniform but thankfully did not hurt when in contact with fabric or skin that was not searing. Possibly it would leave a pink stain, though, but then so would Albion’s blood.

“You’re all right,” she said softly to him, petting his hair. “You’re safe now.”

“Safe for now,” he corrected. “The Resistance doesn’t have much longer. The Hoths are onto us.”

Keandra placed an index finger to his lips. “Shh,” she said. “I know. But for now, you need to focus on resting and getting better. You probably have a concussion and you definitely have a laceration.”

He looked down at the open wound on his shoulder. Then he shrugged, grinning at her. “I’ve had worse.”

As soon as it was determined that Albion was okay, he was allowed to leave the hospital tent. He and Keandra went back to their bedchamber, which was mostly just a closed-off section of a large bedchamber. They got some privacy but it was not as though the tents walls were soundproof. They were essentially tarp.

Still, as soon as they were fully into their chamber and the flap was zipped shut, Albion grabbed ahold of Keandra and walked her to the bed. He kissed her mouth, cheeks and neck and then slowly pulled the bottom of her uniform off of her. He placed his fingertips between her legs and sought out her wetness. Stroking and rubbing there, he got her wetter and more turned on. Smiling at him, she got onto the small bed that was bigger than most of the others’ and opened her legs for him.

Albion took off his uniform bottoms and climbed onto the mattress with her. They were not going to have long this time, and they would have to be a great deal quieter, but there was something about that that made it even hotter.

Quickly, he positioned himself between her legs, lying beside her instead of on top of her because of the bed’s size and because her pregnant belly meant that she could not easily be entered from on top anymore. They would be less conspicuous if someone accidentally opened their flap this way, too. Keandra moved against him, stroking his cock for a few moments and then sucking it to get it nice and wet for her.

“Mmm,” Albion whispered.

Keandra nodded, her large eyes becoming an innocent kind of seductive as she looked at him while blowing him.

Gently, he tapped her chin in order to signal her to stop. Then, he pressed his body into hers, holding her close as he entered her.

She let out a gasp that was barely even a sound and her eyes widened as he thrust far inside her. Because they did not want to be detected in the close-quarters of the tent – mainly because of shyness – Albion did his best to use slow, calculated thrusts instead of his usual quick pace. Keandra absolutely loved it. Before long, they were both sweating. She could feel every wonderful inch of Albion’s cock as he moved against her.

Feeling herself about to come, she took the fabric at the top of his shirt and bit into it so she would not emit a sound. She came hard against him and looked at him with ever widening eyes as the waves of pleasure and sweet release rushed through her.

Albion thrust again a moment later and came into her pussy.

How they both managed to fuck each other’s brains out so quietly was anyone’s guess. They were both shaking, sweating and grinning by the time they both reached their satisfying conclusions.

 

* * *

 

The Resistance regrouped the following morning, well before the Hothian sun had risen in the amethystine sky. They packed up everything they had and loaded all of their belongings and equipment into a caravan of long trucks that Keandra did not even think they had available to them.

They rode in the trucks for nearly two days. It felt a bit like the life of luxury that a celebrity might live back on Earth, but for a pregnant woman who needed to pee constantly it was less than enjoyable. Keandra was very relieved when the line of trucks finally stopped and everyone was free to get out.

The Resistance had found their new station, and it looked more or less exactly like the last placed they had staked out. The only thing separating the two locations was the fact that the Hoths had discovered the last one.

Well, that and the fact that they were slightly closer to the water source now.

Albion came to her a few mornings after their relocation, before setting out on his next daring mission that she would have to sit out of. He took her small hand in his big one, stroking the back of it with his long, claw-like fingers. She had not realized it before she saw him make his transformation into a dragon, but he did have the body of a man who could turn into a dragon. Everything about him was tall, angular, and serpentine.

Keandra looked into his eyes. “I’m looking forward to not having to go through these sad farewells anymore,” she told him. “Someday quite soon, I’m going to be able to fight alongside you.”

“That is exactly what I wanted to talk to you about,” Albion said. “If I come back from this one…”

“When you come back from this one,” Keandra corrected, snapping it out as though he had offended her with his slight fatalism.

Albion smirked at her and let a short chuckle escape him. “When I come back from this one,” he agreed, nodding. “Will you marry me? I know that I do not have much to offer. A nomadic life of bloodshed and uncertainly is hardly—”

Keandra cut him off with a kiss. They held each other close. She felt herself crying and she did not bother to try and wipe her tears away. When at last their lips broke apart, she smiled up at him. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, of course. You silly Gekkota.”

He smiled back at her, clearly touched and prideful that she had said yes. “You silly Earthling.”

They kissed each other again, and then he had to be on his way.

She was so far along now that she was confined to their chamber in the tent, not allowed to leave the bed unless it was to go to the bathroom or sit in the cafeteria for a short meal with Dehneese. The other woman had decided that it was her responsibility to look after Keandra and see to the delivery, whenever it should happen.

Keandra did not want to go into labor while her fiancé was out there somewhere, possibly being shot at by Hoths. She did her best to will herself and her baby not to start going into labor or contractions. She wanted Albion there with her. She needed him there with her.

She was fast asleep when Albion returned to headquarters. This time, thank his lucky stars, he was completely unharmed. He went to the bedchamber that he shared with his beautiful, green-eyed fiancée and found her sleeping soundly on the bed.

“Keandra,” he said to her softly. “Wake up. We have a surprise for you.”

Slowly, she let her eyes open and, as soon as she saw his golden eyes looking at her, so lovingly, she smiled.

“Wake up, we have a surprise for you,” he repeated.

Keandra did not know what it was, but there was urgency in Albion’s voice.

“Is everything okay?” she asked, sitting up in bed and carefully coming down off of it. “You’re not hurt again, are you?”

Albion shook his head, smiling at her. “No, not at all. Just come with me.”

Taking her hand, he led her out of their bedroom, through the main bedchamber where the rest of the Resistance forces in their sector slept, and outside. A crowd had gathered there and everyone cheered as he and she came into view.

There was a twisted and bent metal statue in front of where everyone was sitting. Keandra let out a laugh when she realized that it was supposed to be an altar. Someone had found some abandoned metal and shaped it into an altar for them. She beamed up at him.

Instead of marching slowly up the created aisle like she was used to, Keandra and Albion walked together hand in hand and stopped when they stood just beneath the metallic structure their friends had designed. Ggregg suddenly appeared. His arm was in a cast and he had a black eye, but he was smiling and seemed otherwise fine.

Keandra let out a strange sound that was half a sob and half a laugh. She was so glad to see that Ggregg had made it out alive somehow. “I thought he…!”

“We found him on our last patrol,” Albion said softly into her ear. “He was barely alive and pretty mangled, but we rescued him.”

Ggregg beamed at her. “You didn’t think I’d miss this, did you?” he asked her. He was holding a little brown book. She realized, shocked, that it was a Bible.

Where did he find a Bible in space?

Then she remembered that the Resistance was made up of people from all over. Surely one of the Earthlings had a Bible with them. Keandra was not religious, but it was nice to be reminded of things back home.

“Dearly beloved,” Ggregg started the wedding ceremony. “We are gathered here today in HQ to celebrate in the union of our dear friends Keandra Calhoun and Albion Pagoda. They have both been an invaluable part of our operations here, as you all know. May their marriage and love for each other last throughout the years and may they come to know peace in our galaxy.”

Everyone bowed their heads a little bit, wishing so badly for that peace.

“Albion, do you have a ring for Miss Calhoun?” Ggregg asked.

Reaching into a pocket of his uniform pants, Albion pulled out a sparkling silver ring with a familiar, midnight blue stone on it.

Keandra opened her eyes and her mouth wide in amazement. It was one of those Hothian galsects. She never in her wildest dreams could have imagined how happy she would be to see one of those damned rocks.

She started to cry uncontrollably as Albion placed the ring carefully onto her finger. “With this ring,” he recited. “I marry you. With this ring, I make you my wife, my partner, my best friend.”

This was all so beautiful. Keandra wished that she had been given some warning. She might have tried to scrounge around and fashion herself a wedding dress. Though, now that she thought about it, it made all the sense in the world that they should be married in their Resistance uniforms. They had worked hard to finally wear them, after all. They had earned them. Together.

Dehneese, who was sitting in the front row of the crowd, came forward and placed a small, silver ring into Keandra’s hand. She winked at her friend and then sat back down.

Keandra, gulping, did the same thing that Albion had just done for her. She placed the silver ring onto his large finger, breathing a sigh of relief when she realized that it did indeed fit somehow. “With this ring,” she said, smiling up at him. “I marry you. With this ring, I make you my husband, my partner, my best friend.”

All three of his heads grinning from ear to ear, Ggregg went on with the ceremony. “Keandra Calhoun, do you take Albion Pagoda to be your galactically wedded husband, to have and to hold, to love and to cherish, to fight beside in times of war and times of triumph, as long as you both shall live and even after if from the flames you both can regenerate?”

She stared at Ggregg, taken aback by the added passages. “I do,” she said, raising an eyebrow.

Although she was inquisitive in her tone, Ggregg took it as a solid answer and went on, asking Albion the same.

“I do,” Albion said before Ggregg could even get out the last syllable of his question.

Continuing to smile at them as though he was quite tickled, Ggregg closed the little Bible that he had not once actually read from and held it against his chest. “Then, by the power given to me by Supreme Resistance Leader Admiral Asquataine, I now pronounce you husband and wife!”

A cheer went up from the crowd.

“You may kiss. Always kiss each other. It would be a shame not to.” Ggregg winked at them.

Albion cupped a hand against her cheek and pulled Keandra gently to him. They kissed each other deeply, passionately, fully. She felt as though they were kissing each other’s souls. When at last the kiss ended, she felt dizzy and so happy that the planet could have exploded right then and there and she would have felt satisfied with her life.

Suddenly, Albion lifted her up into his arms and carried her hurriedly down the makeshift aisle while everyone stood and clapped for the happy couple. She was wondering at first if he was just that excited to consummate the marriage, but then she noticed the liquid that was coming out of her from between her legs.

Her water had broken.

CHAPTER SIX

As Albion brought her back into their bedroom, laying her softly down onto the bed, Keandra realized that she was the last person to realize that her labor had begun. She blushed a little when she saw all of the curious eyes in the doorway of their chamber, watching anxiously as though this baby was their own.

Dehneese pushed through the throngs in the way and came to her bedside. She took Keandra’s hand and smiled at her. “I’ve got this,” she said. “I’ve been reading books about this for a while now. I can do this for you.”

Keandra raised her eyebrows at her. “You can have the baby for me?” she asked her jokingly. “That’s a relief. I’m kind of afraid of the pain.”

Her friend laughed and shook a finger. “No, no.”

Albion took her other hand. She could tell that he was nervous. He had gone a paler shade of blue. It was strange to Keandra. He had never once lost his cool before. She supposed that having his child be born was a bigger thing than conquering evil.

Suddenly, the contractions began. Keandra let out a high-pitched squeal that would have broken glass if any was around. “Oh my shiiiiiiiit!!” she screamed. She clutched both Dehneese’s and Albion’s hands and practically shattered their bones.

“It’s okay, silly girl,” Albion said to her sweetly, petting her hair. “It’s going to be okay. Soon you will be holding our baby.”

“Gaahhhh, don’t tell me that!” Keandra shouted at him. “Don’t tell me there’s a light at the end of the tunnel—ARGHHH!!”

She threw her head back and convulsed against the bed. It did not feel like any birth she had ever read about or seen in documentaries. The babies she had seen and read about did not have fucking talons and wings!

Dehneese was calmer than both of them. “Push!” she commanded, moving down to Keandra’s opening so she could watch for the baby’s head or snout or whatever crawled out first.

Keandra pushed, not wanting to spend more time than necessary with the little reptile crawling around inside of her.

“The head is out!” Dehneese suddenly proclaimed, faltering a little bit when she saw how cute he was. “Hello, little one…”

“FOCUUUUUSSSS!”

“Sorry!” Dehneese went back to paying attention to the dilations and contractions, like the studies had taught her.

Albion looked like he was going to be sick.

Keandra could hear something breaking as she gripped his hand and pushed.

Suddenly, there was the sound of something flopping into Dehneese’s outstretched arms.

Waving his injured hand, Albion turned away and threw up into a wastebasket. At least he was considerate enough to do that. Keandra was proud of him for not fainting.

Dehneese focused on getting the baby dragon all cleaned up. She had not been anticipating that Albion’s baby would actually be born in his dragon form. No one had. But a chorus of delight went up as everyone caught a glimpse of the little blueish-purplish baby.

The baby let out a coo sound, and Keandra sat up on the bed. Now that he was out of her, she wanted desperately to see him. Albion took her hand, careful to use the slightly damaged hand so she would not break his other one. The medics were going to have a lot of work cut out for them today.

Grinning and crying a little as the emotion overcame her, Dehneese brought the baby to Keandra and gently laid him down in her arms.

Keandra and Albion started crying along with her when they saw how tiny, adorable and perfect he was.

“Hello,” she whispered to their baby.

He happily closed his eyes and grinned a sharp-toothed grin at her.

“He’s a dragon shifter like me,” Albion said quietly, amazement in his voice.

Their baby crawled around on Keandra’s chest, walking in circles until he finally caught his little tail in his mouth. He soon yawned and went to sleep against her there. She and Albion touched their heads together, fondly watching over him as he slept.

The crowd in the doorway eventually dispersed. There was going to be a lot of drinking and celebrating tonight. No other couple had made it this far. No other baby was born into the Resistance.

“What are you going to call him?” Dehneese asked Keandra, making sure to speak only in a whisper so she would not wake the baby dragon who slumbered so sweetly on Keandra’s chest.

Keandra looked up at Albion, who looked down at her lovingly.

“Albindaro,” she said, uttering the name she had created for the first time. She loved the way that it sounded on her lips and tongue. A mixture of his parents’ names. A good, strong name for a good, strong boy. “His name is Albindaro.”

 

* * *

 

In the weeks that followed Albindaro’s birth, the baby dragon grew bigger and stronger. Finally, one day, he shifted for the first time. As a humanoid child, he looked like the perfect mixture between his mother and his father. He had light brown hair, green-gold eyes and skin that was robin’s egg blue.

Keandra’s favorite thing about her son shifting and being strong enough to chill out for a while without needing her was that she was finally about to go out on missions with Albion. Dehneese was the first one to offer to babysit the half-Gekkota, half-human.

“I have never taken care of a baby before,” she said. “But I have read about it, and I am sure I will be fine.”

Laughing a little, Keandra nodded at her. “You will be. It’s not very hard to take care of Albindaro. Especially here, where you’re surrounded by other people who can help you.”

Keandra looked around and realized that Albindaro was nowhere to be found. He was not in his crib or his play area or even his feeding chair.

Dehneese started to freak out. “Has he been abducted by an enemy??”

Before panicking, Keandra thought rationally about the situation. “Wait, wait… I think I know where he is.”

She left the Resistance encampment and, sure enough, there was her son. He was sitting in his father’s arms on top of one of the mountain’s many dark gray boulders. Keandra laughed a little and climbed up there to join them. “There you are,” she said. “I thought that one of the Hoths had taken you both away.”

Albion smiled at her and handed the baby over to her. Keandra rocked Albindaro, gazing lovingly down at him. Now that he had taken his humanoid form, she wondered if he would mostly stay in it like Albion did. His dragon form had been a shocking and hard to deliver shape, but he was also quite cute as a dragon and she hoped to see more of it.

“So, what do you think?” Albion asked her. “Now that Albindaro is with us, do you want to hop onto a starship and go back to Earth? I wouldn’t blame you if you did. This planet is not a good place for a child to be raised…”

Keandra shook her head. She had given it a lot of thought. “I miss Earth sometimes, and it will always be home to me, but my place is not there. My place is here on Hoth with you and the Resistance. Albindaro will be happy here. He is surrounded by beings who are more like him. And plus, you know how Dehneese would lose it if we even mentioned that we might take him away.”

Albion did an accurate impression of the yellow alien, gasping and throwing his arms in the air. “Not the baby!”

They laughed together, and Albindaro giggled along with them as if he somehow had an idea of what they were talking about.

“Shall we, then?” Albion asked her.

Keandra smiled. “We shall.” She stood up then, still carefully holding onto their baby. “But we’re not taking him. He’s too small. He deserves to have a blissful childhood. At least, as blissful as possible.”

Albion stood up and climbed down from the boulder with her, making sure that she did not slip or lose her grip on their baby. “He will have a perfectly idyllic childhood here, surrounded by thousands of doting fans.”

“They’re all his aunts and uncles,” she joked, grinning down at Albindaro, who was busily chewing on her shirt sleeve.

They brought the baby back to the compound, and Keandra handed him over to Dehneese. The other woman practically hopped up and down, she was so excited.

Keandra laughed. “Don’t do that too much if you want to keep that uniform looking nice and clean,” she teased.

With their baby in good hands, Albion and Keandra left hand in hand. She felt like taking off at a run, and that was much more exiting when he shifted into his dragon body. Then she ran to him and jumped onto his back like she had been preparing all of her life for this moment.

She had once thought that she did not want to go riding off into the sunset with her Gekkota friend. But now, things had changed. Now, Albion was her husband. They loved each other. And the prospect of sunset was a delicious one.

THE END

ALIEN’S MATE

CHAPTER 1

“I’ve never been to Mexico before. Have you?” The excitable woman next to Valerie had been chattering for the entire tour, and Valerie zoned out a few times as she tried to keep up with the information spewing from the tour guide’s mouth.

“No,” she replied abruptly, and hoped the woman would shut up.

But she kept going. “I’ve always wanted to come here, to visit the Mayan ruins, but I’ve never gotten the chance, and as soon as I won that ticket, I was screaming and…” She stopped then when she saw Valerie move forward, a clear indication that she wasn’t listening at all.

Valerie side stepped the woman, who seemed a little bit too lonely and in need of company, and caught up with the rest of the group. She slapped at a mosquito then that had decided it was time for lunch, and then fanned before her, in a desperate attempt to scatter the small flying insects that had started to gather into a swarm. She looked back at the woman, who quickly turned her head away in embarrassment over her earlier babbling. Valerie thought of apologizing, but she knew that would lead to more unnecessary and awkward conversations.

“The Mayan ruins depict a rich history of a talented set of people pre-dating 1500 BC, and often referred to as the Pre-Classic period. They were the pioneers of the first formal writing style, the hieroglyphic script, and they used their knowledge of the stars to document events in history, and as some would believe, even the future. It was rumored that their calendar ended in May 2012, and since their predictions are usually correct, it was thought that life as we knew it would end then. We know differently now, right?” he asked, and some members of the group chuckled.

“The Chichen Itza was the most important Mayan city, boasting impressive Central American architecture, and was oftentimes considered a magical place. Here, in the Coba, it is hard not to believe that.”

“I am most impressed by the fact that they had no technology, or charts, and they were able to make those massive pyramids, something modern man is yet to copy,” a bald man interjected. “I would have liked to be there back then.”

“I can understand how they could do that,” another man, perhaps a professor added. “Consider the early Greeks, like Galileo, who taught us how to read the stars. Back then, it all came back to the stars.”

“Or maybe they were aliens,” a young man said, and his group of friends with him chuckled.

“And that is not far from some of the stories we have heard,” the guide said. “It is often rumored that the Mayans were connected to aliens, which gave birth to their genius in architecture, language and art. It is said that they had pathways that connected both worlds, a gateway that the Mayans often navigated.”

“No way,” the young man said. “That’s awesome.”

Valerie listened to them, half of the times, as they trudged through the undergrowth in the sparsely lit and cold jungle. The path was relatively wide, an indication that it was travelled on a lot, but at the moment she regretted not wearing better clothes. Mosquitoes, flies and gnats whizzed by her face and ears and occasionally stopped to sip from her. She saw some of the others fanning this way and that too, but she would take this torment over the one that had been served her by her ex-husband. This trip was a way to get away from him, to get away from it all. Her weight hadn’t seemed to matter to him; in fact, he had encouraged her late night eating on occasion. To find out that he had been cheating with a skinnier woman had been like rubbing salt in the wound. But he could have her. She was beautiful enough to get another man on her own; a man that would love her, warts and all.

So distracted was she by her thoughts that she had wandered away from the group without realizing it. She stopped dead in her tracks then and listened, but all she heard were the sounds of the jungle; the gentle flowing of water over rocks; the fluttering of birds as they abandoned their nests overhead; the chirping of crickets and the croaking of frogs. But she hear none else. She stumbled along until she came to a fork in the trail, and after a moment of hesitation, she headed onto the path that led to the right.

It brought her to a dense overgrowth, and she called and looked around for anything or anyone familiar. Her feet were beginning to rub against the hard rubber of her boots, and she decided she would just return to the clearing and wait for the group to return. She had seen enough of the Copa anyway. It was getting darker, and she wasn’t sure how far back the trail went, so it was no surprise her adrenaline started pumping as she imagined she might get lost. She walked as fast as she could, and in her hurry, she didn’t see the slippery incline a few feet away. She stepped hard against the embankment, and before she knew it, she slipped and slid about one hundred feet down, the twigs and leaves slapping against her face as she whistled by.

Her screams went unheard, and when she came to rest again, she stood and looked at the muddy mess against her jeans.

“Oh man,” she sighed as she tried to rub the stain out, which only served to make it worse. Then she looked around and realized she was as far as she could be from the trail. “How do I get out of here?” she asked silently as she tried to climb the incline, using the hanging vines and exposed roots as leverage. They kept slipping from her grasp, so she decided she would walk parallel to the trail on the lower level.

She walked for a few hundred yards, and was surprised to realize she was right back at the spot where she had begun. She had made a complete circle, but what was most discombobulating was that on the second time around, the only thing familiar was the incline.

CHAPTER 2

“What the…?” Valerie said to herself as she turned about a couple of times. “Wasn’t I just here?” She wiped sweat beads from her brow, an unusual act considering she was in the middle of a cold and wet jungle.

She started again, but the path that she walked before seemed to have disappeared, and she stepped into a clearing that led to a stream instead. “Where did this come from?” She was growing worried and concerned that she was indeed lost, and that no one would find her. “Hello!” she started screaming at the top of her lungs. She knew better than to go across, or she would really be lost. The tour didn’t feature a stream, even though there were supposed to be lakes in the Copa. Her idea of a simple getaway had exploded into something far more than she had bargained for.

She turned around and started walking in the direction she had come. Maybe if she went up the incline, she would find the path again before it got too dark. Her heart was thumping and her chest was heaving as she broke into a slight run. She got to the place, and just like before, she started maneuvering her way to the top by clinging to vines and roots. She exerted more effort this time as she kept her attention focused on the sun taking a darker shade and dipping further west.

She kicked and grabbed, dragging her oversized weight to the top of the incline, and when she got there, she flung herself over the embankment and stretched out on her back. Her breathing came short now, and she stared at the ceiling made of green that towered above her for a considerable time while she waited for her body to slow down. When her breathing resumed normalcy, she flipped over and grabbed onto an overhanging branch for support, and scrambled to her feet. She patted her hands against her jeans and started in the original direction. She came to the fork in the road as before, but there was no reason to expect there would be anyone waiting there, and she wasn’t about to wait for them either.

She started running down the path, pushing the oversized leaves from her path, and stopping once to look at what seemed like a giant mosquito fly by her face. Panic surged in her now, and she could hear the blood rushing through her veins as she went as fast as her feet could take her. And then she felt the sting as something wrapped around her feet. She fell to the ground. There was something like a cord wrapped around her feet, and it prevented her from moving.

She quickly worked her fingers over the hard cords, and as soon as she stood and started running again, she heard wails and cries echoing through the trees. Valerie turned around and around, as she tried to discern the source of the cries. Then she started running again, and came to an abrupt halt when she saw the giant animal standing before her. Its head was like a wolf, but it was as big as a bear, and it growled at her as it commanded her to remain. She did not, and instead started moving slowly backwards. Terror seized her, and with the adrenaline still pumping in her veins, she turned around and started running again.

“Stop!” she heard a voice call from behind, but the blood rushing through her propelled her movements, and Valerie felt incapable of stopping.

Valerie started screaming now, even as she felt the animal close in on her. She felt another sting, and the next thing she knew she was on the ground. She heard a thump, and when she turned around she saw the strangest looking thing she had ever seen. It towered over her, its long hands reaching out to her. She flinched when it touched her, and scurried back, but he moved too quickly, and was much too strong for her. He pulled her to her feet, and the rest of them circled her.

“What…where am I?” she finally found the nerve to ask.

“I am Malek,” he told her. “You are in Tundra. Where did you come from?”

“I am where?” she asked, even while keeping her eyes trained on the vicious animal that still growled at her.

“Tundra,” he repeated. “One of the many jungles on our planet Xenon.”

“Your what? No, I’m on earth,” Valerie retorted, but even as she did, her mind tried to reconcile what she knew and what she saw before her.

“You are an earthling?” the man asked.

“Yes…yes!” she cried and turned around again, as if to flee. “I am trying to find my way back to the group that I followed into the Copa. I am in Mexico.”

“I thought you said you were on earth,” Malek said, now confused.

“Yes. Mexico is a place on earth. Why am I talking like this is real? Clearly I slipped when I was running and hit my head. This must all be a dream and any second now I’m going to wake up in the back of the bus because someone from the tour found me.”

Valerie started slapping her face, trying to wake up from the dream that seemed too real. Her eyes grew wild, and when she thought she could get away with it, she turned right and started off in a sprint. When she felt them upon her, she grabbed a piece of loose log on the jungle floor. She waved it about, and panted.

“Don’t come any closer,” she heaved. She swung the stick from side to side, warding them off, until she felt something come down hard on her shoulder. She crashed onto the ground, and then everything went black.

CHAPTER 3

There was something tickling her face, and she turned about to get it off, but each side she turned, the sensation returned. She lifted her hand and slapped at it, and then turned again. This time she felt the sun on her skin, and then a cool breeze blowing against her feet that appeared to be bare. Why were they bare? She had on sneakers just before they had started the tour. That’s right! The tour! She shot upright, and looked around her. There was nothing recognizable in sight besides the spear that was held against her neck. Her eyes followed the stick, and met the man’s on the other end of it.

She looked around and realized she was in something that looked like a hut, made from wood, vines and some sort of canvas acting as walls. It had a thatched roof and a flap down the front that acted as the only entrance or exit; she only saw it as the latter at present. She smiled haphazardly at the man guarding her, and because she had nothing else to do, she began her survey of him. He was tall, like the other one, and a neck so long it seemed to be detached from his body. But not in an awkward way; it gave him an aura of power and knowledge. He wore khaki pantaloons, and he had the same fabric covering his upper body. His arms protruded from the shoulder, and his bronze skin flexed and glistened in the rays that escaped through the spores in the covering of the hut, and polka dotted the space.

His face was serious, and he held her there with his eyes and his weapon. “No move,” he told her.

“Okay,” she told him and held her hands up. “So, what is this place?” she asked. It was obvious she was either no longer in the Mayan ruins of Copa, Mexico, or there were some native people running around in the jungle no one else was aware of.

“Masawa,” he told her, and offered nothing more.

“Masawa?” she asked. The name wasn’t familiar to her at all. She was growing more bewildered by the moment, and just when she decided to risk it all and make a mad dash to the door, she heard what sounded like a commotion outside. The man’s face twitched, but it was obvious he was concerned. She waited, giving him the opportunity to leave, and as soon as he did, she sneaked to the slit in the wall. She pulled it back just wide enough to see two men roughing it out in the center of a small gathering of people. The man who had just left was trying to break it up, but he was struggling against the weight of the other two and had his back to the hut just then.

Valerie thought it a fitting time to try and make her escape. She lay low and pulled the slit further open. She kept her back to the flimsy material flapping in the wind, and with eyes searching for an opening, she slipped to the back. Her heart was racing in her chest, so she stopped for a second to calm herself. She had only just turned to make a run for it when she felt someone grab her from behind. She turned and came face to face with the man she had seen on the animal before.

“You need to come back,” he said.

“Okay, okay,” she said and conceded, for she knew she could neither outrun or fight him. Where would she run to anyway? She was lost in the jungle with a native tribe that thought they were on another planet.

“Do not try to leave again, or I cannot be held responsible for what happens,” he told her.

“Why are you keeping me here?” she asked him, and followed him inside the hut once more.

“You are dangerous,” he told her, and sat on what seemed to be the trunk of a once huge tree.

“I am dangerous?” she asked, and then laughed. “I’ve been called many things, but dangerous has never been one of them.”

“You did pull a weapon on one of my men when we saw you in the Tundra,” he told her.

“Why do you keep calling it that?” she asked. “I was in the Copa, not the Tundra, or whatever you call it. And I would like to go back to the hotel now. They must be out looking for me by now.”

“Maybe, but they aren’t looking here,” he told her.

He was wearing the same khaki pantaloons like the other guard, but he had on a green and white tunic at the top instead. Not only was he better looking, and seemed more confident, but he had better command of the English Language too. “So, if we aren’t on earth, like you said, how come you know the language, and better than him too,” she said when she noticed the guard returning.

“English is not the language of earth,” he told her. “I just happened to learn it better than most of my people.”

“Your people? So, that means you are the leader?” she asked and the anxiety on her face was evident.

“Yes,” he said and stood then to face the man who had just returned. “Watch her properly this time,” he told him sternly. “Do not leave this spot for any reason,” and with that he turned and left.

Valerie was about to go after him, even after hearing the instructions that were given to the man, but her guard planted himself firmly in her path, filling every possible angle of escape. She backed away and sank into her seat, prepared to sit there until they decided it was fit for her to leave. She had wanted an escape from the drama in her life, back in San Francisco, but she had not signed up for an excursion on another planet. She still thought she must be dreaming, but the glare in the eyes of the man who stood guard over her was making it less of a dream and more of a nightmare.

CHAPTER 4

The only times the slit in the canvas moved was when a woman entered to give Valerie something to eat. Whenever she had to make an excretion, she had a special place in the corner, which was checked regularly. She was feeling hot and dirty, and she was glad when she saw him return.

“Can’t I go outside? It’s been days since I’ve been here,” she said.

“Only one day.” His eyes swept her frame, and then he grunted and went back outside. When he came back in, a woman was with him. “Take her to the river,” he instructed. “Give her a bath.”

The woman nodded and went over to take Valerie’s hand. Valerie shook her off sidestepped her, not sure whether she should be feeling grateful or annoyed. She squinted her eyes when she went out, and she could tell that by the direction of the sun, it was slightly past noon. She looked around the village as she walked, and saw a collection of huts like the one she had just exited. Women and children milled about, and seemed happy and content. She saw a baby playing with one of the giant wolf like animals, and she stopped in her tracks. She was horrified at first that it might harm it, but she witnessed then the gentleness of the beast.

On her path to the river she saw a man and a woman returning; she was pregnant, and he had her in his arms, her weight not seeming to matter to him. He looked at her in an odd way, and his eyes followed her until they passed. There were many more at the river, and the women were seen washing the men, dutifully, but not seeming bothered by it. It was all new to Valerie, though she felt too self-conscious about taking her clothes off. The woman moved robotically, and began stripping Valerie as soon as she stepped into the water. She stood still, and allowed her to work, and while she stood in the river and allowed the cool water to wash over her, she finally opened her mind to the possibility that this world was nothing of Earth.

Back at the hut, she went directly to the man in charge. “Where exactly am I?” she asked him again.

“I told you; The Village Masawa on the Planet Xenon. Come,” he told her and walked off.

“Where are we going?” she asked as she tried to keep up with him and his party. The heavy tunic she wore that practically hugged her ankles obstructed her walking.

“To the place we found you. I want to know how you got here. Maybe there was a vessel we missed,” he said.

“There is no vessel,” she said when she caught up with him. He didn’t seem to hear her, and kept walking. She grabbed his arm then, and he stopped abruptly and turned to her.

“This doesn’t make any sense. If there is no ship, then how did you get here? What were you doing?”

“I was with some people in the jungle in Mexico when I got lost. I tried to find them, slid down a slope and lost track of where I was. That’s when I ran into you.”

He stood there, biting his lips and looking around, and then grabbed her by the arm and led her in another direction. “Maybe Master Shakh will know.”

“Master who?” she asked.

“Master Shakh. He is our wise one. He will know what happened better than any of us,” he replied and tugged her along.

They got to the dwelling place of their wise one and he left them outside while he went in. After a few moments, he emerged with who she had expected to be an old man, but instead, he seemed as young as the rest of them.

“So this is woman from earth?” he asked, and then beckoned to her. “Come, come,” he told her and waited for her to get to him. Then he placed his arm around her and brought her inside the hut. “I never seen earth woman before. My grandfather told me about one he see, but that was thousands of years ago.” He looked at her, and plucked her skin, and then smiled at Malek. “She is nice one.”

“That’s not why we are here. We need to know how she got here,” Malek told him. “Maybe we can send her back.”

“I’m afraid I can give you idea of how she came, but not sure if I can make a way back,” he said and went over to a table he had filled with candles and herbs.

Malek and Valerie shared surprised looks and then turned to Master Shakh again. “You know how I got here? Oh my God!” she exclaimed. “That’s the best news I’ve heard all day.”

“Not so fast,” he told her. “That may not be such good news.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“History tells of gateway from this world to yours. A time portal. My grandfather privileged to go through two times in his life. I never did, but would love to see other world.”

“A gateway? But that means if we can find the spot, then I can go back through,” she said excitedly.

“I’m afraid it isn’t that simple. Gateway only opens once every generation, and only when sun and moon come together. I can try and tell when something like that will happen again, but I don’t think it will be soon.”

“An eclipse!” she exclaimed when she realized what event the man referred to. “That shouldn’t be so hard to track, and it may be soon.” Valerie asked and turned about in the hut as she tried to make sense of it, but even with her limited knowledge, she knew eclipses were rare.

“Only if Earth woman lucky,” Master Shakh told her. Then he went over to her and patted her on the shoulder, and with a grin, “Welcome to Xenon.”

CHAPTER 5

Valerie spent the next couple of days in the Masawa, learning their ways and observing their interactions. After a while, she lost interest in returning home. What was she returning to anyway? At least here, she felt like she belonged; like she was a part of something. She accompanied the women when they went to gather berries, herbs and fruits. She helped when the men returned with game from their hunt, and she even taught them new ways to prepare their food. She figured anything that was a bird would require the same preparations as chicken. She even got accustomed to the Tsar, the wolf-bear creature that was nothing more than an overgrown golden retriever at heart.

“Everything is so simple here,” she remarked to Naresh one day. She was one of the women she had grown more familiar with.

“What you mean?” the woman asked.

Valerie smiled when she imagined the girl didn’t understand what simple meant. “I mean, where I’m from, you had to be busy all the time; running to catch the subway to get to work; being stuck in a cubicle all day in a cramped space; smiling at people you didn’t even want to be around; running again at the end of the day to catch the train before it leaves; just to get home to a husband who doesn’t even appreciate that you are there,” she said and sighed.

“What is subway?” the girl asked.

Valerie jumped just then when she heard a twig snap behind her. She was relieved to find that it was only Malek. “You scared me,” she told him.

“There is nothing to be afraid of in Masawa,” he said and held out his hand for her.

“That depends on what scares you. I could be afraid of a spider,” she said and laughed. He chuckled too, and she couldn’t help but notice the sparkle in his eyes when he did, or the way his skin color change from bronze to crimson. She walked next to him, and to the hut that had been a home to her from the beginning. The women had given her clothing, and considering that in this world being oversized was the norm, she fit right in.

“I heard what you were saying to Naresh earlier,” he told her when they got inside and he was sitting on the trunk that seemed to be his personal favorite.

“Wh-what did you hear?” she asked nervously and pulled her golden hair behind her ears.

“You didn’t sound as if you were happy with the life that you had,” he told her directly.

Valerie smiled then, and hung her head. “No, I wasn’t happy,” she told him.

“And you had a husband…is that the word for mate?” he asked curiously.

“Yes, that’s what he was,” she said and heaved an exasperated sigh.

“He wasn’t a good mate?” Malek asked.

“No,” she said, and even though she was far from her ex-husband, and he couldn’t hurt her anymore, his effect lingered enough to tear at the strings of her heart and provoke tears she hadn’t set free in weeks. She quickly brushed them aside, but for each one she did, another would take its place. “I’m sorry, I’m not usually like this.”

“Why do you cry?” he asked her, and the concern was visible upon him.

“I gave him everything, and he left me for another woman because he said I was too fat,” she said and wiped her eyes. “If he had done it for any other reason, I could have understood; but to know that he left me for nothing is what got to me. So, no, at first I thought I would, but I don’t miss being home, and I don’t miss Earth.”

Malek did not know the right words to say that would stop her tears from flowing. Instead, he stood and pulled her to him, and in the silence of the hut he held her, and in so doing gave her more than her ex-husband had in the months preceding their divorce.

“If Master Shakh does find a path home-some miraculous way of reopening the portal to Earth-I don’t think I’ll want to go back,” she sputtered, amidst the tears.

“You only say that now because you are upset,” he told her, and then held her away from him so he could look her in the eyes. “The feeling will pass and then you will want to go back, but you have to think about it carefully. When that gateway reopens, and then closes again, it may not do so for another hundred years, and by that time I will no longer be here.”

Valerie turned then so that she was facing away from him. “Maybe,” she said. Then she spun, as if jolted. “I’ve seen the way the men here treat the women; the way you carry them around like they were made from glass; how you bring them something from every hunt; how they smile and float around without a care in the world because the men protect and provide. I’ve never had that; so why would I want to go back?”

“Well, if that’s how you feel, then you are welcome to stay here, and we won’t treat you any differently,” he told her and sat down again.

She sat there looking at him, and then something occurred to her. “How is it that someone like you, a strong warrior, hunter and leader, does not have a mate of your own?”

Malek smiled to himself and turned his face outdoors. “I’m not sure I can answer that question,” he told her.

“You can try,” she urged.

He lowered his body and took up a piece of stick and played with it between his fingers. “I guess, it has never felt quite right before,” he told her. “But I’m hopeful.” His eyes scanned her curves, and a smile escaped.

Valerie blushed when he spoke, and her mind played on the word ‘hopeful’ as she imagined it might just be her.

CHAPT ER 6

It didn’t take Valerie long to adjust to life in a different kind of jungle. The Village expanded further than the collection of huts nearby, and was but a small part of a very big planet. There were several other tribes surrounding the one she was in, and every couple of days they would host a big feast and have games, and the women would dance and entertain the men and children. Valerie was beginning to feel more a part of this world than she ever did back home.

“Come,” Naresh said and tugged her by the arm. “We dance,” she said excitedly.