Astrid

 

 

 

“WAIT? WHAT? ARE you telling me the tree is sentient?” I halted with his hand circling my wrist.

“Isn’t everything?”

“But you eat fruits and vegetables,” I countered. “And meat.”

“Only what we’re given to take.”

A vast new world was opening up right before my eyes.

“Flowers!” I rushed around a bend in the path, Zane’s long stride easily keeping up with mine.

I bent my head, ready to take a giant sniff of the lemony scent when he cautioned, “Careful. These ones are carnivorous.”

I backed away from the giant unfurled blossom, landing right against Zane’s chest.

“Kidding.”

“That’s not even funny!” I whirled on him.

“A little bit?” He swept me up and swung me around, and I forgot Magnar stood watching over us as Zane’s warm firm lips swooped down for a toe-curling, breath-stealing kiss.

“Don’t mind me.” Magnar’s low whistle dragged us apart. “Just out for a stroll here.”

“Remind me not to thank X for putting you on Astrid-detail.” Zane cut a glare to the warrior.

“I’m rather enjoying my detail. And the new scenery.”

A warning growl rumbled from Zane, and I looked back to see Magnar checking out my ass.

A flirty feminine feeling compelling me, I slowly bent at the waist to smell the fresh tangy fragrance of the flower.

Zane’s next warning rumble was aimed at me.

Flicking back my hair, I carried on through the forest, but there was an extra swivel in my hips.

Flocks of birds flittered overhead, Zane smiling beside me as I watched the colorful creatures zip across the sky.

“Wait until you see the glecaws,” he mentioned.

“Glecaws?”

“Birds of prey. Much bigger than an eagle.”

“Prairie said something about unix?”

“Ah. The unix. They’re her favorite. She wanted X to try to tame one for her.”

“He said no?” I couldn’t imagine the king denying Prairie anything.

“Unix aren’t pets.” He laced his fingers through mine. “He gave her a vehicle to rival her Ducati instead. Trust me, she didn’t complain.”

“She doesn’t seem the type to complain about anything.”

“No. But she is—”

“Sassy.”

“That’s one way of putting it,” Magnar added, ambling behind us.

Laughter bubbled from my throat, and I breathed in the scents of the forest—earthy loam and luscious flowers. “Everything’s so remarkable here, Zane.”

Insects and lizards creeping in the underbrush caught my attention. Each life form decidedly foreign, most larger than anything I’d encountered on Earth, but nothing looked extraordinarily dangerous.

More fascinating than anything else.

Every time I stopped to crouch down, quickly imaging new unimaginable creatures or awesome colorful vegetation, Zane cocked his head in interest. So tall and muscled, he sometimes blotted out the suns’ light, but his warmth spread to me, from his body to mine.

After leaving the woods, we approached a plain; its short-cropped flat fields the truest blue I’d ever seen.

 “I still can’t believe this is all real.”

“You have the proof you sought now.” Zane spun me toward him.

“But why me? Why a female from Earth? Why Earth at all?”

He cupped my chin tenderly, flicking through strands of hair that curled around my neck. “As for Earth, we’ve always ventured there. Homo sapiens are the most like us as a race, although subpar in terms of abilities, strength, and technology.”

“Are you insulting humans now?” I reared back.

“No.” Chagrined, he stifled a laugh. “No. I mean . . . Zenithian females are fine to bed when they’re agreeable—”

“If you call me a wench or anything like that right now I’m gonna smack you.”

Zane’s laugh roared up to the sky. “I wouldn’t dare. Our females are not so—”

He stopped when Magnar made his own warning sound, and I wondered what Zane had been on the brink of admitting.

“Take Prairie for instance.” He shrugged. “She is perfect for my brother. I wanted what they have. As for you . . . well,” looking out across the indigo blue fields, he slid his hand to my neck then to my shoulder, “your intelligence enthralls me, and your beauty beguiles me.”

My heart melted beneath his searing look. I was about to pull him to me for a kiss when the ground beneath our feet started shaking with such force I grabbed onto his forearm.

“Is it an earthquake?” Wild-eyed, I peered up at Zane.

His chest shook as much as the ground as laughter tumbled from him. “Tazek.”

“Tazek?” I heard deep lowing noises and leaned over to look beyond him. “Tazek!”

The massive furry beasts stampeded closer before Zane threw a hand back and the herd of animals stopped, en masse.

They milled, hundreds of them, ten feet away, mouths to the ground, blunt teeth tearing at the blue grass.

“They’re docile beasts mostly.” Zane ranged behind me and ringed me in the circle of his arms.

“Exactly what X said about human females,” Magnar drolly commented as he stepped beside us.

“I’m not docile!”

“I had noticed, meehri.” Zane nuzzled the side of my neck, which made me melt back against him . . . just like a docile creature begging for more of his touch.

It would take me a lifetime to make a detailed study of this planet—two lifetimes even. Then I remembered what Prairie had said, and Zane had admitted, about a Zenithian’s lifespan. And how human aging also slowed dramatically.

This civilization was quite simply nothing short of extraordinary.

“One more thing I want to show you.”

“Only one?” I asked.

“Two.” He smirked knowingly. “But you’ll get those later.”

We ventured in a different direction, bypassing the roadways that shimmered and glimmered and twisted, vehicles I couldn’t even begin to describe zooming past at such high speeds I was dizzied just watching.

Before long, Zane delivered me to the white sandy shores of a sea so vast I couldn’t detect an endpoint beyond the far horizon.

He kneeled down in front of me and unlaced the sandals from my feet, tossing them aside.

He likewise rid himself of boots, and I sunk my toes into the sand that seemed to glow.

“It’s so warm.” I bent my head back and the temperate heat of the suns washed across my face.

Zane’s hand curled around my collarbone before drifting between my breasts, down my center.

He tugged the belt at my waist, drawing me with him. “So is the Idris Sea.”

Air filled my lungs like oxygen. The salty briny scent of the ocean teased my nose. And I tiptoed across the sand to the foamy verge of waves. Waves that crested then seemed to curl back over in reverse?

I gave up investigating altogether in favor of sheer fun. Laughter spilled from my throat, bubbles of it burbling like the white suds the wavelets delivered to shore. Splashing my toes, I kicked a spray of water at Zane as he waded beside me with the most breathtaking smile, mirroring my effervescence back at me.

Oh my, but the man was all that and a couple big cocks. I snickered again, imagining Prairie saying such a thing.

Scurrying along the edge of the water, I hunted down a spiral-like shell similar to a prehistoric ammonite and just as massive.

I squatted down. “Don’t tell me. You have giant squid too?”

He hunkered beside me. “I can’t tell you all the secrets on your first full day.”

Launching myself at him, I toppled him onto the damp sand. I straddled his hips, my hands caging his wrists beside his head.

Electricity thrummed between us as my pussy aligned with his groin. With a moan, I leaned down, stretched on top of him. My wet lips sampled his, and he could’ve easily broken my hold but he didn’t.

Zane lay beneath me, apparently lax, but his body flexed, and his cocks thickened wickedly. I gave him another unhurried kiss, grinding down on the two poles of flesh that stimulated my rapidly swelling sex.

Easing back from his mouth with a gasp, I swiveled my pelvis more quickly.

Zane growled and tore his hands free. Done with being dominated, he flipped me to my back. My gurgling laugh turned into a throaty moan when he drove his shafts against me. His tongue plumbed the depths of my mouth, and I wondered if he’d try to breed me as his mate right there and then.

I might not even complain.

A loud whoosh—a flapping sound stronger than my moans and the sea’s crashing waves—interrupted our kiss. Zane’s head bent upward, and I followed his gaze.

Above us, giant birds flocked and dipped.

I pressed Zane off me, jumping up.

The unix!

“Oh my God!”

“Gods,” Zane muttered.

“They really do look like a cross between a phoenix and a unicorn!” There they were, enormous colorful griffon-like creatures.

“Indeed.”

White spiraling horns rose from the red-gold plumes on their heads. And they had tufted hindlegs with big clawed feet. They were large and loud and dazzling.

Several of the stunning oddities flapped slowly to the sand nearby. I gingerly approached, ignoring both Magnar and Zane who tried to caution me.

Their bright beaks looked sharp enough to tear flesh from bone, and their bright feathers fluffed up as if in threat, but I couldn’t stop myself. I bent my head in submission, not a predator.

The first unix lifted its beak, and beady eyes fixed on mine. It quirked its head with a curiosity I recognized.

Forgotten was the tablet.

Forgotten was my life back home.

Forgotten was everything but this one breath-stealing moment with a new species.

“Hey, gal. I’m not going to hurt you any,” I soothed, stepping closer.

The bird-mammal hybrid dipped its beak back down, neck feathers like a coxcomb, and remained majestically still as I touched the very tip of the very sharp horn rising from its forehead.

Petting the creature, I laid my cheek against her neck, feeling her preen beneath my hands.

“Fuck.” Zane raked a hand over his face. “Next thing you know she’ll have one tamed.”

“Like she’s taming you?” Magnar’s sardonic words drifted toward me.

Another noise, more like a quiet supersonic whir, startled the flock, and the unix ran shoreward before lifting up as one, the arrowed formation strangely similar to Canadian Geese.

I watched them fly off as Zane appeared at my side.

“Ah, shit,” Magnar mumbled, pointing in the opposite direction.

I followed his aim then stumbled against Zane. An entire fleet of . . . starships—sleek silver starships!—whizzed overhead.

“We must go now.” Zane herded me toward the palace, his voice harsh, his hold on my elbow unforgiving.

No matter how many times I asked him what was going on, he refused to answer me. And when we arrived at the very bottom of the palace—an area that seemed formed from the cliff overlooking the Idris Sea—X appeared.

The king, who’d been formidable yet good-humored the night before, now looked as grim as his brother.

“All right. Someone tell me what the hell’s happening,” I asked, all three men surrounding me immediately tense.

“The arrival of someone I’m not very fond of.” Zane’s irises flipped to gold, and his fangs appeared behind the lips I’d kissed just minutes ago.