Chapter One
Kadelyn
I love sex, but I wouldn’t give up my life for it.
Maybe it if was really good. Like, body-shaking, eyes roll back in your head kind of sex. But how often does that come around? Not often enough for me.
“Another one welcomed aboard,” Libby said to me, her chin resting on her palm. She gave a lazy point to the massive steel gates that protected our hideaway. They opened with a metal squeal, and we watched as an alien Vithohn and his human lover came strolling through.
“Normally,” Libby continued with a breath as we nosily watched the couple as they were inspected by our camp’s leader, “when you see new couples you wonder if they’ve done it yet.”
“Not here,” I confirmed, hoping she would stop at that.
“Nope. Here you pretty much assume he’s stuck it in her—”
“—Nice,” I interjected, disgusted.
“—if he hasn’t ripped her head off yet,” Libby laughed.
She was, of course, referring to our Vithohn neighbors. The ones who took over our planet, who tried to exterminate the humans. They thought they had succeeded until one day some Vithohn, crazed and aggressive as they are, boned some female. Called her his one true love. Calmed his madness. Now they live happily ever after.
Or so the story goes.
“Isn’t it weird how he probably tried to kill her before he got in the sack with her?” Libby nattered on, tossing her white-blonde hair up in a ponytail and offering widened blue eyes at me.
“Isn’t that what grasshoppers do?” I said.
She shook her head, correcting me without saying no. “Praying mantis.”
I nodded. “Right.”
Libby laughed as we sat on a bench in our makeshift city square, watching as our collection of human and Vithohn’s bonded together to assess the new couple. It was dusk, and we had been dividing our spoils for a half hour, preparing for a welcoming festival tonight.
Basically, a party to congratulate Lynne Brown for bagging a Vithohn and turning him over to the human side.
You see, when the Vithohn took over, humans—those who survived—hid in pockets of hidden civilizations. Some take refuge in old abandoned hotels or trailer parks.
We used to live in an old subway tunnel. It was nicely converted, using scraps of metal to build shanty houses and using subway cars as greenhouses.
But that was nearly two years ago.
It wasn’t uncommon for bands of traveling humans to pass through our tunnels, seeking refuge or looking for directions to the next human camp. But that last time, humans came with the Vithohn.
“Big?” Libby interjected, pointing to the newest Vithohn in our midst. He was tall and smooth-skinned, deeply tanned with purple discolorations, sometimes referred to as tattoos, covering his entire body.
Or, what we could see of it.
His head was smooth and bald and trailed back into a giant limp tentacle that emerged from the back of his head. He didn’t have horns like some of the other aliens, but he was big-eyed and handsome, and I assumed, for Lynne, that was enough.
“Is it?” She was, of course, referring to the man’s penis size. I sized him up and gave a half-hearted shrug.
“I imagine they all are,” I said, pausing, before correcting, “Not that I imagine it.”
“Liar,” Libby said with a stifled laugh.
The travelers who entered the camp were looking to start a fresh civilization. A place where Vithohn and human couples could go and team up. Start a revolution.
Our people were shocked that anyone—any woman—would want to be in a romantic relationship with a Vithohn. The murderous, aggressive aliens who slaughtered our people. That’s when we were told that once a Vithohn had mated, they became docile, reasonable. All they wanted was to make the humans happy.
So they said.
Libby and I had spent many nights talking about the plausibility of humans and Vithohn working together. Being in love. The thought more than boggled my mind.
Regardless, the couples had converted our entire camp to their cause. Convinced us that it was a society worth following. And I have to admit; their love seemed real.
Their base was called Rowan.
It became our home.
I was only nineteen when the couples came—I understood that any hope, any promise of living in harmony of taking out Earth back was a chance we had to take.
We had to.
That didn’t mean that I had to shack up with some Vithohn, though.
Libby wanted to, but Libby talked about sex so much that it became tiresome. She spoke of it with just enough vigor and sass to let you know that she had never actually had sex before.
Of course, we were encouraged to use our womanly wiles to cause any Vithohn we might encounter in the wild to lose their aggression.
It wasn’t until five years later, now, that I became curious about what it might be like to… be in love? Be with a Vithohn?
“I’m bored,” Libby announced suddenly, passing along an old finger-sized bottle of vodka and letting me take the last sip before tossing it back into our bag.
“Let’s go back to the mech,” I said, and Libby immediately sprung up from our bench.
I walked back toward the south end of our hideaway, over where the water met the land, where we hid our Mech. I watched as Libby crawled up the machine with seamless ease and pulled out a khaki-colored satchel full of goods, holding it close to her body like a squirrel might fiercely protect a chestnut.
We scavenged, Libby and me. It was our job since we were teens. Hiding from the Vithohn who took over our world made military types irreplaceable at human camps. And since Libby and I were hardly military types, or even militia, we made ourselves indispensable in other ways. Stealing.
Libby and I looked for old grocery stores and hotels that hadn’t yet been raided by the humans. And, I’ll admit that on occasion, we may have kept some of the spoil for ourselves. Give the canned goods to the camp, keep the booze.
Tossing me another tiny bottle of alcohol, Libby hopped back down, bag in tow.
“Did you drink some of them?” I asked, peering into the bag before she was even back on solid ground. My head was already buzzing with the heat from the alcohol, but I wanted more. There were two or three empty bottles that sat on top of the pile that made me shoot her an unimpressed stare.
“Oh, poor little orphan girl,” Libby laughed, rolling her eyes. “She wants first dibs on everything!”
I was orphaned. My parents died when I was about six or seven. Libby’s parents, Suzanna and Joel, took me in as their own and raised Libby and me as sisters.
Poor little orphan girl Kadelyn Day. That’s what Libby used to call me when we were kids. Now everybody calls me “Kidd.”
We’re friends now, but whenever I have a bad day and her little nickname pops into my head, she still ends up on my shit-list.
We made our way back to the mech, and I looked up at it as one of the only familiar things in my life.
Joel was a pilot, so it wasn’t long before we’d acquired a mech—a giant robot equipped with guns on the head, arms, and waist. We largely used them for scouting, and some used them for cultivation, but I enjoyed the powerful feeling of having a weapon at the ready in case anything went south while exploring the lands.
Joel, who I was never truly comfortable calling ‘dad,’ despite having live with him since I was six, fitted our mech with thrusters, making it one of the first machines that could fly for more than just a few minutes.
“Going out trolling for men?” Zake, our resident machinist, asked as Libby and I dismounted the mech.
Zake was tall and handsome, Asian, with bright brown eyes and spiky black hair. He was maybe a few years older than me and often hung around when Libby and I were together.
I knew he liked me but hadn’t pushed anything with him. In fact, I was purposely cold to him just to try and make him go away, go be with Libby instead since she was clearly dying for it.
“Libby!” I scolded, punching her hard in the shoulder. “You told him?” I fumed.
“About your secret crush?” Libby teased before slapping her hands over her mouth. “Nope! Not me!”
“Crush?” Zake repeated, raising an unbelieving brow.
“More like obsession,” Libby giggled.
“Libby!” I shouted again.
“Relax, it wasn’t me,” Libby said, rubbing her shoulder and jumping back from me playfully.
“She didn’t have to say anything,” Zake offered, unsure whether his tone should be hurt or amused. “You take the mech out every day.”
“Yeah,” I argued softly, tapping my fingertips against the robot. “We’re supposed to go scout and scavenge every day. Remember?”
It was true. As per our instructions, two humans were supposed to go scout nearby Vithohn and report back by radar. Find more ‘eligibles’ to pass off to another one of our single females.
“She wants to bone a Vithohn,” Libby exclaimed to Zake in an overly perky manner. She was tipsy, with just a side of annoyance.
“Sounds like you’re the one who could stand to get some, Lib,” Zake snapped with some humor, knowing she was just trying to get the best of him.
“An excellent point,” I said and turned away from them both, hopping into the mech. “And off I go.”
It was true. I’d been seeing a Vithohn. And by seeing, I literally mean visually looking at.
He was gorgeous, muscular and tall with a deep browbone that stretched all the way across his face. He had a square jaw and smooth, rubbery skin. Three broken horns lined up vertically in the center of his forehead.
He had blue eyes. No hair. No spire.
Interesting.
I took the mech to the sky without another word to my friends and made my way to the usual spot, a clearing in the midst of a heavy forest, landed the machine not far off… and watched.
I loved to watch him move, watch him interact with his friend. A green-eyed Vithohn with a mane of black hair whom he seemed to have a quick banter with.
Their conversations made me laugh, especially when they were food based. Vithohn loved to question human food. Cookies. Pie. Milk?
Hilarious.
I watched them for an hour, halfway between wanting to touch myself and wanting to introduce myself. I had never been so fiercely attracted to anyone before.
Well… maybe once.
I made my way back to our camp and over to the massive ship that sat oceanside at the far end of our city. It was an old rusted ship that we often hosted parties on when new girls brought their Vithohn partners into our camp.
Tonight, there would be a massive celebration, and I was ready to ask a Vithohn for a hefty favor.