Alyssa

I fall asleep in Tyr’s arms as he whispers to me.

Everything will be fine. We will figure this out.

I’m not sure what he means … of course everything will be fine — why wouldn’t it work out fine? I can’t get the smile off my face. I haven’t had sex like that in heaven knows how long. Actually, maybe ever.

So, yeah, everything will be fine. Because no matter what happens now, I will always have this memory.

I lose consciousness. I have never been this comfortable. But then hours later my eyes snap open and I sit up bolt upright, waking him from his own sleep. My mother. The ship. The cure.

“We have to keep moving,” I say, my voice hoarse with sleep, and I busy myself pulling my clothes back on and fumbling with the tent flap. There’s no zip. I have no idea how this damn thing works!

“Alyssa,” he murmurs, enclosing me from behind in the comfort of his body. I had wondered if, in the cold light of day, my decision making skills might seem a hell of a lot poorer. But I twist my body and look up at him.

This gigantic purple warrior. His angular face is softened by sex. His golden eyes are less piercing through me, more caressing me from afar.

“You are so gorgeous,” I can’t help but tell him. My heart is warmed when I look at him.

“There are no words in my language for what you are,” he replies.

When we are dressed and the tent is wrapped up again in a tight little package and stored in his belt, I look around to get my bearings while he stretches. He works tension from his muscles one by one, and I have no choice but to watch. I stare.

He might not have his original legs, but he has the best goddamn butt I have ever seen.

“Guess you gotta be limber in case danger approaches, huh?” I ask, craning my neck so I can still see those glorious buns as he arches his back and rolls his shoulders.

“Yes, exactly,” he grunts, and nods to me to indicate that he is finished and we should get moving. “What? You look disappointed.”

I realize that I am fully pouting about his stretching ending, and let my face tighten back up into a beaming smile. “Maybe a little. I’ll get over it.”

“What is it?”

I hook my hand around his elbow and squeeze. “Nothing.” I can’t tell the serious alien that I was enjoying staring at his butt.

Though he will occasionally rake his gaze over me with an expression that looks a lot like unbridled lust, we haven’t touched intimately since we woke up so it feels, in a way, like we have reset ourselves back to before we slept together. Like we need to ramp up again from zero.

I don’t want to push him, or anything, so I just keep walking. Thinking about what his huge, dominating, powerful body did to me. Remembering the feeling of his warmth and his strength between my legs. The expert way he moved his hips. The tightening of his biceps either side of me when he came fully inside me.

When he…

I glance up at him.

He isn’t my genetic match, is he? That means if I’m pregnant, it’ll almost certainly kill me. Destroying relationships between Earth and the Mahdfel. Whether they saved us or not, if Earth women are being beamed over and dying alone on another planet, that really isn’t going to look good in a press release.

Damn. I may have singlehandedly really screwed something up here. Because of lust. I look over at Tyr again. Maybe more than lust. My eyes trail down his body again.

Intense lust.

I still have a shot of Mahdnium in my bag, though. When I get a moment to myself, I will take it as soon as I can. It should remove any possibility of dying if I become pregnant with someone I’m not matched with. I relax again.

My mysterious genetic match on Paxia is slipping further and further from my mind. If he cared about me at all, he would have found a way to send a message to me. Just a simple ‘hello’ would have made all the difference. Why should I remain loyal to him? Sure I chose to come here — despite what everyone thinks — but I am still an independent woman who can make my own choices.

“We are nearly there,” he says.

Just then, he jolts and his eyes fly wide open. I stare at him, confused, as there is a loud crack and he staggers to the left to lean suddenly against a tree, his handsome face clenched in the effort to stay upright.

One of his wooden legs has snapped in half.

It lies beneath him, and the tatters of his leather pants sway in the breeze below the break.

“Tyr,” I gasp. “Your leg. The…”

“Being on Paxia weakened it. The tchakara broke it,” he confirms through gritted teeth. Sweat is beading at his forehead and I realize that though it doesn’t exactly hurt him, he is rendered immediately almost useless. He is a large, solid and sturdy man. He needs two sturdy legs beneath him to hold his weight. His other leg won’t be able to hack it alone; it could snap too.

I hurry off to find a large fallen branch and bring it back to him. He looks at it like I’ve brought him a terrible art project home from school, and then looks up at me with confusion.

“Use it like a crutch, you big weirdo,” I chide. He doesn’t understand, so I take the stick and mime using it to help me walk.

“Fine,” he grumbles, and takes it. He growls and rumbles as he experiences a learning curve, but soon he is hopping along with the branch’s help.

And it looks like he was right — just five minutes more and we arrive at gates made of patchwork metal: corrugated rust and shiny studded steel. They stretch above us, ten feet high or more. Tyr hops closer and motions for me to push it open for him to enter, and I press my back against the huge swinging door and allow him to hop his way through. He holds it open and I follow him.

“Halt!”

The squeakiest command I have ever received jolts me to a stop and I look around at the houses made of the same scrap metal bound together in crude hut shapes. And then I look down.

The cutest goddamn little rodent alien glares up at me, its huge shiny eyes narrowed to accusatory slits. It holds a spear made of metal and slams it against the dirt at its feet.

“Your ship that landed here? From Paxia?” it squeaks. It is wearing raggedy robes that cover its squat little body. Just like Aphrodite said, it has long curved spikes that cascade down its back like a porcupine. Its button ears twitch on top of its head.

“Yes,” Tyr says, and to my surprise he dips his head slightly in a bow. “I am General Tyr.”

“Loper Nefericus,” the Merrel says. “Chief in chief.”

He offers a cute little paw and I let out a tiny squeal as Tyr bends over and gently shakes it with his enormous purple fist.

“We are here to recover my ship. You do have it, yes?”

“Your ship,” Loper repeats. “Landed yesterday in the eastern plains. Crew dropped off supplies with us and then moved on to farmlands to the west.” The Merrel points behind him, through the metallic village and beyond.

“So the Aeon Mahdfel remain,” Tyr says, looking visibly relieved.

“They stay in their homes. We stay in ours,” Loper says.

“As it has always been. That is good to hear.” Tyr looks at me. “This is Alyssa of Earth. She is supposed to be in Paxia to aid the Mahdfel with the continuation of our species.”

When he puts it like that it makes me sound like an important ambassador or something. I like it.

“Hello, Alyssa of Earth,” Loper squeaks. I bend over like Tyr to shake his little paw and clear my throat to avoid saying something stupid about how cute he is. He is the chief of a tribe of aliens, after all. Not just a funny little talking porcupine.

“If your people had stolen my ship,” Tyr begins, as delicately as he is capable of speaking, “where might they have hidden the pieces?”

Loper shakes his little head. “No, no way would have stolen a freshly-landed ship. Upset the first visitor in five years. No way,” he says confidently.

Tyr frowns. I understand his feelings. If the Merrel didn’t steal his ship’s parts, who did? The Mahdfel farmers? His crew? It’s hard to see a situation where it’s anything but sabotage right now, and I can feel the tension radiating from his unsteady body.

“Visitors,” Loper says, either not sensing the unease in the air or simply breezing past it. “Visitors to Merrelia, stay and eat and rest. Then go to Mahdfel farmland.” He presses his paws together and opens his mouth in a cute smile.

“Thank you,” Tyr mutters.

“Come and find me, Loper, in the chief place when you are leaving. Say goodbye. Okay?”

“Fine,” Tyr says.

“Thanks,” I agree, and the porcupine nods animatedly at me and then turns to move away on four legs.

Tyr turns to me, his face dark. “This is bad,” he says quietly, eyes darting around as if to check for listeners. “Loper is right. The Merrel are slow and they are not much advanced, but they are not so stupid as to destroy a visiting ship within an hour of its landing. They need our help.” He gestures around us. I try really hard to see what he is seeing, but I catch sight of a trio of baby Merrels playing: tumbling over each other and squeaking with delight, and I have to cover my mouth with my hand to stop from squealing.

They are a proud alien race — they are not just cute little animals!

“You think it’s someone else?” I whisper. “Who?”

“I have no idea. The people who want to stop you from coming to Paxia are not here. There has been no other ship landing. I did not sense the presence of any other Mahdfel.” He looks solemn. “We mustn’t trust anyone.”

“What should we do?” I ask.

“Well, we are lucky. It pains me to say this…” His face is paling and he runs his hand over his jaw at what he is about to relay. “We must rebuild my Eclipse using the scraps that they have here. They will have an underground storage filled with trinkets they have found. We will find it, and take the supplies as payment for aiding them. Loper will not mind. Then with a working comms system I must tell Wrax what has happened. And then we will get my crew and make it the short journey back to Paxia and figure out our next step from there.”

“The next step is taking me to the cure,” I remind him.

“Yes.” He isn’t looking at me when he says this. “Right.”

I clench my jaw. “You promised me.”

“I know,” he says, looking irritated. “I will take you. But first we need to get off of the moon. Without drawing too much more attention.”

“Excuse us, please.”

We both wheel around and see an adolescent Merrel looking nervously up at us. I glance at Tyr, who looks grimly down at the child.

She wrings her hands and looks around. “Visitors don’t come often. Want to join in?” She tilts her head. “Play?”

I look behind her at a couple of other nervous kids holding a ball made of taped up materials. The brave Merrel blinks up at me.

“There is no need to be untrusting. The Merrel adore meeting new species and making new friends and allies. They will certainly be a force to be reckoned with in a millennium.” Aphrodite sounds genuinely excited to see what happens next with their species.

“Yes, OK!” I cry before I can help myself. “Oh, but I need to help General Tyr over here with a little errand, and then…” I trail off, looking over at Tyr. He sighs.

“You will be no help to me in recovering working ship components,” he says. “You will be a hindrance, in fact.” His eyes twinkle a little with a contained smile when he says this — I know he isn’t serious, and the secret behind his look makes my stomach warm. “Stay and make friends. It can’t hurt.”

“It can’t!” I agree, and stroll over to introduce myself to the group of Merrel kids. “I’ll be here when you’ve finished building the ship,” I sing over my shoulder, and Tyr looks around for a moment and then sweeps towards me to close the gap between us once again, crutch tightly in hand.

His empty hand presses against the small of my back and before I can say anything, he bends over and presses his lips firmly against mine. I forget to breathe at the sweet taste of his tongue briefly flicking against mine. He pulls away and I feel weak.

No one can silence me so effectively as Tyr.

“Tell no one,” he says to the children, who are all staring wide-eyed. Tyr smiles at their shocked little faces, and then hops away to find the entrance to their underground storage.

I hope he finds what he’s looking for. We’re completely and utterly screwed if he doesn’t.

With a shallow sigh I turn away from his retreating form and clap at the smiling Merrel. “So, what are we playing?” I ask.