Commander Jaize Lorna
Taking Christina to the lab didn’t wield the immediate results I had hoped for, and we returned to the house soon after, with Christina quiet and my spirits significantly dampened. Still, there was a possibility that she would hold the answers in her hands. I could tell she was telling the truth about not knowing anything about the disease, but she understood human thinking better than I did. She might offer some use in treating my problem.
“Are you ready for another meal?” I asked tiredly once we arrived back at the house. Christina nodded, and I took her to the small kitchen, where the tiny Pelin cook, whom Malnia and I had hired just a few months after we’d lost our kitchen staff, was busy preparing the evening meal. Humans ate a significant amount of food compared to the Verians, and I left her to the meal, contemplating my next move.
I was going to visit the men’s section of the prison the next day to find out whatever I could about the young man who had been captured during the last raid on Earth. It could possibly be enough incentive to truly motivate Christina to find a cure to the disease. Whether she wanted to cure me or not, she would gladly do so if I could promise the safe release of her brother.
Unfortunately, the safe release of her brother was something I couldn’t actually guarantee. Although I was a high-ranking officer, there was no way I could corrupt the course of justice on Helna, and without a fair trial, it would be nearly impossible to be able to grant the boy freedom and refuge back on Earth.
To put it simply, that was the kind of thing that rarely, if ever, happened. If the boy was already in the prison system, he was more likely to be executed. Especially if he refused the offer to join the fight against humans.
“Where have you two been?” Malnia barked when I trudged into the bedroom, ready to shed my clothing and cleanse myself. I could tell by the tone of her voice that she was already prepared to fight, but I couldn’t tell her the truth. She didn’t know about my disease yet, and if she did, she would most certainly blame me even more adamantly for everything that she perceived to be wrong in her life. Sometimes I really regretted marrying her.
“I took her down to the lab,” I said, trying to come up with a good lie on the spot. It was hard to think on my feet like this though. Lying wasn’t my strong suit. I much preferred the truth, no matter how bitter it might be.
“And why did you take her to the lab?” Malnia asked, her eyes flashing angrily at me. She probably thought I had taken her off somewhere to secretly mate. But what she didn’t realize was that when the time came, I would mate with the female wherever it was appropriate. In my home or elsewhere wouldn’t matter. She was meant to be mine, not only as my duty to my people, but for my own sake. Somehow, it was just the way it was.
“I wanted to make sure that it was safe to keep her here. You were worried that she was a disease vector, so I had her checked out.”
Malnia raised her eyebrow. “And?”
“Clean bill of health,” I lied. Now I was going to have to get her checked out for real, in case Malnia had her father do a little bit of digging.
“Good.”
“But,” I said, realizing that now would be a good opportunity to cover for the times I would take her back to the lab to work on an antidote to my mysterious disease. “I’m supposed to take her back regularly for routine checkups. Just to make sure that everything stays as it should be. You understand.”
Malnia studied me for a moment and then turned away. “And where is the human now?” she asked, dropping her clothes to the floor. I gaped at my wife’s naked body, a small twinge of nausea gathering in my stomach. She was jealous of the human and hoping to make herself appeal to me. But I’d heard rumors that while I was gone that she had done the same thing to Kerai Baltross, an eligible bachelor and a man who just so happened to be one of her father’s favorite mooks.
“She is having her evening meal,” I said quietly. The coyer Malnia attempted to be with me, the more resentful I started to feel. She hadn’t said a kind word to me in almost an entire year. She took advantage of my needs every so often to satisfy herself and attempt another chance of having a child and considering herself a successful Verian wife and mother, but again and again, our efforts in that department failed. It left her with a serious vengeance, and I knew that if I gave in again, it would be no different this time than it had been any of the others.
“And would you lay with me before it is time for ours?” Malnia asked.
My body responded despite my brain’s best effort to avoid my wife’s manipulative insecurities, but for the first time in the history of our marriage, I backed away from the promise of her body. If the only thing keeping us together was sex, then what was the point in being married?
“I have some matters to attend to right now,” I said, standing rigidly in the doorway. “Perhaps some other time.”
“Perhaps?!”
But before I could feel Malnia’s scornful gaze upon me, I was gone.
***
“What does it matter to you, Jaize? You’ve never shown an interest in such matters before.”
I sighed. Perhaps it had been a mistake to try and confront the guards so late in the evening. Everybody was eager for their late-night meal and anxious to go home. The prisons were highly under-staffed since the last waves of war had ravaged the planet, and every able-bodied soldier possible was recruited, leaving only the most competent guards with the huge responsibility of managing the entire prison system themselves.
In fact, I was called in regularly to cover shifts when I was on Helna and had some spare time, though as the situations on the front lines became direr with more and more men succumbing to the disease, I was increasingly busy attending to matters of war.
“It doesn’t matter, does it, Narei?” I asked. “I’m just asking about a boy being brought through here. It’s my business why I need to know.”
“Well, there is one,” Narei said reluctantly. “He’s kind of a pain, actually. I doubt he’ll end up lasting long in this place.”
A trouble maker? That sounded familiar. Must have been a shared genetic trait.
“Can you take me to his cell? Don’t tell them I’m looking for anybody specific. I would just like to see for myself. There’s a possibility he might do well on the battlefield. If he’s from the Zone I am thinking he’s from, he might also do as a medic. That’s a lot less dangerous than arming a human and hoping they stay on our side during a fight.”
“Absolutely,” Narei agreed. “He’s kind of a runt, so I don’t know how he would do out in the field anyway.”
I chuckled. “Most humans are small anyway, particularly the young ones,” I said, slapping the young man on the back and heading down the passage with him. He shone his light into each cell and allowed it to linger on the seventh cell. In the back, I saw a young boy, shivering against the wall, with the same unmistakable features as my human.
For some reason, the sight made me feel sick to my stomach, and I turned away quickly. I hated to see the boy suffering. Perhaps I had too much invested in the human. Whatever the case, Narei followed my lead, and we walked to the end of the cell block and back out to the receiving area.
“Did you find the kid you’re looking for?” Narei asked eagerly.
“No,” I lied, shaking my head with a sigh. “But the one in there might do sometime. Who knows.”
Narei nodded. “Sorry to disappoint you, Yul Lorna. Maybe next time we pick up a straggler, it will be the right one.”
“It’s no problem,” I said quickly, walking to the doorway. “It will be all right. We are managing without humans on our ranks. It is more important to create the hybrids anyway.”
“Little chance of that happening with such a small male,” Narei said with a snort. “Most Verians won’t let their women near human men, even if their seed was strong enough to stick.”
“Since it isn’t, we just have to keep on trying to create our army with human females to incubate the hybrids. It’s not an issue,” I said.
“It’s really not,” Narei agreed. “I heard you have a human living with you now. Do you think that, in time, that will be a standard arrangement on Helna?”
“If all goes well, Narei, then living on Helna will be the temporary arrangement. We will be colonizing Earth before you know it. Nothing right now is standard. It’s all a state of transition. It’s best to stay open-minded and prepared for change at this point. It’s for the best.”
Narei nodded, and I knelt to him.
“Enjoy your meal,” I said, eager to shirk off any talk about the human that was making herself comfortable in my home. I had enough issues dealing with her on my own without other people prying for information.
As much as I dreaded going back to the place where two women were likely to be very angry at me, I had no choice. I was the Yul of the house, after all. And whether they liked it or not, I would do what was best for all of us.
***
When I arrived home, Malnia was lying in bed, still half naked, and I cleansed myself before joining her. She lay rigidly across from me, her body cold, distant, and pale white, like a distant glacier.
Eventually, she turned to me, as I knew she would, and her eyes settled upon me.
“I don’t know what has happened between us,” she said quietly. “But I am not happy. And I haven’t been for a long time.”
I sighed.
“I know,” I said. “I wish I could be the man to make you happy, but it is not so. My rank in the squad is not enough to make us compatible.”
Malnia nodded and turned away from me again, and I lay in silence until my chest was close to bursting. I got up from the bed quietly and left the room, contemplating what this meant. Neither of us was happy. It seemed a painful declaration to make out loud, but it was an honest one. And honesty was something I valued highly, even though I seemed to be finding myself lying more and more over the course of time.
“Oh! I’m sorry!”
My heart thudded hard in my chest at the sound of Christina’s voice, and I halted my voyage down the hallway to find her standing in front of the little servant’s kitchen. I laughed despite myself.
“I think human appetites are something that will take me a while to get used to. Do you want me to fetch the Pelin for you? He can cook another meal.”
“No, that’s all right,” Christina said, laughing sheepishly. “I don’t want a whole meal. I just want something I can snack on right now.”
I nodded, and we stood awkwardly in the hallway. I could feel Christina studying me and felt suddenly self-conscious. It wasn’t a feeling I was used to having. Frankly, I had always been a man who was confident and athletic, both qualities that had helped get me so far in my career. But ever since the disease had caused such grief in my personal life, I wasn’t particularly feeling my best.
“Are you all right, Jaize?”
It was strange to hear the human say my name. She hadn’t quite mastered the Verian flick of the tongue, and the name sounded almost burdensome in her mouth. But at the same time, the accent with which she spoke was sexy somehow.
“I’m all right,” I said.
“You’re lying.”
I was caught, and shrugged helplessly. “We can talk more in the kitchen. I would rather not wake Malnia.”
Christina nodded, and I followed her inside and sat at the small table, watching with quiet amusement as Christina rummaged through the storage box and heaped little piles of her choice foods onto a plate.
“So, what are you lying about?” Christina finally asked me, sitting down at the table and taking a generous bite of my personal favorite – jeya. It was a dish passed down from the royal family about a century beforehand, and it always tasted fresh and comforting.
“I’m afraid my marriage is over,” I said. It was strange to say such a thing out loud. I had felt it happening for many, many months now, but acknowledging it was another thing entirely. I had rejected my wife’s body because I was more tempted by the allure of this human. But my fixation with Christina went so far beyond her body that it baffled me. I would almost rather have the simple pleasures of my impossible-to-please wife. Everything having to do with the human was complicated and frustrating. At least Malnia was predictable.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Christina said. “And a little bit surprised. She seemed so eager to keep me away from you.”
I laughed quietly. “She is eager to control my every move. It has always been like this, to some degree. But it only got worse after our first few children died in the womb.”
Christina gasped and covered her mouth. “I’m so sorry. How?”
I couldn’t help but glare at her – a human with medical knowledge who could so easily help to cure whatever it was that ailed me and the rest of my people. “Most speculate it to be germ warfare cultivated by the humans. The disease I suffer from. The unbearable bouts of weakness. Children that die before they are even born. There is nothing good about this.”
“Project V,” Christina breathed, squeezing her eyes closed and shaking her head. “I had no idea. I wish there was something more I could do—”
“There is,” I said, looking deeply into her amber colored eyes and taking her hand in mine. “I found your brother in the prison. He’s fine, but won’t be for long. If you cure me, I will do everything in my power to release him.”
“What?” Christina said, dropping her food onto her plate and staring urgently into my eyes. “You had better not be lying.”
“I’m not lying. Please, keep looking for a cure. This is torture. It is no way to win a fight.”
Christina pulled her hand away and sighed. “I’m doing everything I can! I just don’t know what to do. Can’t you help Lucas? He’s innocent in all of this.”
“I want to help you both, but there are certain limitations to my power and conduct. I am a Verian. It comes with rules. Just promise me that you won’t give up trying.”
Christina sighed. Her eyes were filled with an emotion that I couldn’t pinpoint, and I suddenly felt foolish. I stood abruptly from the table and looked down at her fragile looking form. What was I doing, pleading with a human for a cure to a disease her people created in the first place? There was no reason I should feel so comfortable baring my soul to a human. But there I was, doing exactly that. Shouldn’t I feel emasculated?
But Christina stood and took my hand into hers. The forbidden heat that her touch sent through my body made me suddenly alert to the deep longing that I had been trying to repress all day long, even before Malnia had attempted to lay with me. The desire I was feeling was for Christina, and Christina only. I wanted her body against me, close to mine, and the whisper of my name on her lips. Just as I had from the moment I’d laid eyes on her, I wanted to claim her, right then and there.
She seemed to understand exactly what it meant for her to take my hand, and as we stared into each other’s eyes, I finally found what had been holding me back for so long; reciprocation.
My lips found Christina’s suddenly and fervently, and we kissed with a deep passion, unlike anything I had experienced before, even with my wife. When we pulled apart, both of us were panting, and the dark heat of my desire was finally bubbling to the surface, too explosive to hold back any longer.
“Come, Yula,” I whispered into Christina’s ear, my lips brushing against the soft skin of her ear. “You are mine now.”