The Alien's Virgin: An Alien SciFi Romance (Chief of Kurah) Page 3

  I take my place and kneel in between the tree’s thick roots. I pray as the morning light brightens the Naruda sky and tints it with a soft blush.

  “Wylah, hear my prayers,” I murmur. “Give my people the strength to strike down the Selith. Give me a weapon to defeat their armies once and for all.”

  I put my right hand to the ground and press my palm into the soft dirt. I can feel the energy of Wylah here, stirring under the warm dirt and tall grass.

  As I kneel at the Spirit Tree, the wind touches my hair and grazes my cheek like the soft touch of a woman’s hand. The Goddess is here. I can feel her. An energy crackles in the air and smells metal, like a growing storm. The hair on the back of my neck lifts as I look up at the glowing tree in front of me. Rising to my feet, I reach out to touch the tree. The bark of the tree pulls back and flakes off under my touch, revealing a bright light underneath.

  She’s alive. She is talking to me.

  My heart beats like a drum in my chest. I carefully peel apart the bark revealing more of the light underneath. The heart of the Spirit Tree is bright as the sun and I shut my eyes against its light.

  There’s a sound. I hear the wind blowing through the leaves, but it’s something else. It grows louder. A high, thin noise. A yelp.

  A small form hits my chest. I catch it quickly and bring it up to my face. It’s small and I nearly cover its soft, furry body in my hands. Its black eyes stare into mine.

  Confusion pinches in my chest. “This is the gift from the Spirit Tree?” I ask.

  Its tail vibrates rapidly. It doesn’t look like it could defeat a blade of grass, let alone a royal tyrant. Patience, I remind myself. Who am I to deny a gift from the Gods?

  There’s a second sound. Another yelp. No, a scream. Before I can turn to the tree, a body slams against me fully. The force is so strong I nearly lose my balance but I catch it quickly.

  This second gift is larger than the first. Its body is lithe, like the willow tree, with curves around the chest and the hips. Its face is covered in red hair. I part the hair down the middle and brush it to the sides to reveal a face.

  A woman lays in my arms. Her eyes are wide as an owl’s and her plump lips are open and unmoving. She stares at me and I see a green in her eyes that I’ve never seen on a woman before. It is the green of a young stalk or a shimmering emerald. It is the green of the Spirit Tree in full bloom. I look into her eyes and I know I am looking into the eyes of the Goddess herself. This is more than a gift, this is an incarnation.

  She is beautiful.

  For a moment, we stare at each other. Neither of us can find the words to say.

  “You found my dog,” she says and breaks the silence. Her voice is breathless and there is fear vibrating around the edges of her eyes.

  What must she think of me? She is soft as a lily petal and I am twice her size, all muscle, and covered in black markings. I am a Kurah warrior, there is nothing gentle about us.

  “Goddess.” This sensation is unlike anything I’ve ever felt before. Warmth unfurls inside of me and fills my chest. I don’t have a word for this. Nothing in my training as a warrior for my Tribe has prepared me to come face to face with the Goddess herself.

  The perfect lines of her eyebrow crunch together. “Goddess?” She echoes.

  I hear it then. The ground trembles underneath us and in the distance hooves pound against the ground, drawing closer. I tear my gaze from her to glance over the horizon. Dust clouds are approaching.

  “They’re coming,” I say gravelly.

  “Who?” My Goddess is startled, disoriented, but she makes no move to leave the crook of my arm. It is as though she is paralyzed.

  “Faron’s army. We can’t let him find us.”

  “Which is bad, because…?”

  “He would kill us.”

  “Right, he would kill us, that’s what I was going to say…wait, kill?”

  “We have to go, my Goddess,” I tell her. I look into her sea-green eyes as I speak to her. I can look at nothing else.

  “This is obviously some mistake, some big mistake.” She flails out of my arms, gets to her feet, and whirls herself back to the Spirit Tree. She throws herself at the bark of the tree, running her hands up and down, trying to feel for the doorway. “Thank you for catching me, sir. Don’t be offended or mad, I just need to find the light door and get back home. Then I’ll be out of your hair and you don’t have to worry about me.”

  I’m obliged to do as she says. My Goddess has been sent to me to destroy Faron’s army. She is the answer to my prayers and I will be stepping in the way of fate if I disobey her.

  All the same Faron’s army is growing closer, we’re running out of time. She squats at the bottom of the tree and growls as she tugs hard at the unmoving root of the tree.

  I move my hand to her arm. Her bones are small in my large grip, I have to be careful not to hurt her. She stills immediately and looks at me with wide eyes. “My Goddess, we must leave,” I remind her with a quiet urgency. “Now.”

  “The door…” she pleads, her voice is weak. She is begging me to fix it.

  I shake my head. “The door is closed.”

  The hoof falls are close now. So close that even my lady can hear them. Her head whips to the noise, fear humming around her like electricity in a storm. There is panic on her face when she tries to run away from the impending hooves, from me.

  I will not let my Goddess run straight into danger. I tuck the small Goddess-gift under one arm and lift my Goddess in the other to toss her over my shoulder. She lets out a yelp and her legs kick out behind, trying desperately to break free from my hold .

  “Hold on,” I tell her.

  “Let me down! Please, don’t hurt me!”

  “Up,” I say and point to the tree. The Spirit Tree has vines that droop and hang to the forest floor. I grab one and plant a foot into its sturdy bark.

  “What happened to running?”

  “We can’t outrun Faron’s ca’tars, they are fast beasts,” I tell her. “They won’t find us up there.” I keep my voice strong to comfort my lady, but I can feel her fighting me still. She finally stills, once I begin to climb the tree, her arms clinging tightly around my chest. The tiny Goddess-gift hangs limp in the crook of my arm and pants with its pink tongue out. I dig my feet into the roots and grip the branches, pulling all three of us upwards. I know the groves of the bark as though they were my own. I shift my weight from one foot to the other and make quick work. When we reach the top I find a thick branch to stop and survey the land below

  From here, I can see the long branches of the Spirit Tree swaying lightly in the wind. I don’t have to tell my Goddess to be quiet, she does that all on her own. Her mouth snaps shut, but in my ear, I can hear her breath come in and out rapidly through her nose. She is panicking.

  “Close your mind,” I tell her.

  “What?”

  “The Selith will hear your thoughts if they grow too loud. Quiet your mind. Close it.”

  She adjusts her grip and her arms hook tightly around my throat, which is uncomfortable, but I bear it. After a moment, her shallow breaths deepen and the spikes of her panic subside.

  It is not a moment too soon. The sound of ca’tar hooves grows heavier until I can see them below us. The large horned beasts come to a stop directly underneath us.

  “My Lord, he’s not here.” The voice is scaly, a hiss.

  “Of course, he’s here. The Kurah run to their magical bush every time a wind so much as blows their way. You’re not looking hard enough.”

  That is a voice I recognize and I see the sandy-yellow top of Faron’s head below us. He is dressed in a dark, velvet tunic with the Selith royal emblem on the back—three eyes stacked up in a pyramid. My skin burns at the sight of him. If I leapt from the branch now, I could make it to his ca’tar and snap his neck. I imagine the crack of his bones, and it makes my blood pulse. But I can’t. Not with my Goddess clinging to m
e. For her sake, I hold my warrior’s rage in check, though it is hard to contain it.

  The ca’tar hooves clunk against the ground as Faron’s soldiers search the ground. I remain still. Not a leaf rustles in our tree.

  “We should split up,” the scaly voice says after they’ve made circles around the Spirit Tree. “The Savage can’t have gone far, My Lord.”

  “Wait.” Faron’s voice quiets every sound, even the ca’tar still their hooves. Faron lifts his head and draws in a deep inhale. I cannot see Faron’s smile, but I can hear it in his voice when he speaks. “There’s something here. Someone. I can smell her fear. Like fresh ice.”

  My Goddess begins to tremble on my shoulder. I know now that we will soon have no choice but to fight. I feel Swing humming, hungry for the taste of Selith blood.

  “Come out, Garock!” Faron calls. I can see him now, and the scar across his face. For a moment, I am very proud of Swing. “I promise we’ll go easy on your friend.”

  I shift the furry Goddess-gift from under my arm and hold it up for my Goddess to take. It lets out a little huff of a growl as she tucks it quickly against her chest. I use my now free hand to unsheathe Swing from her leather thong and grip her handle tightly.

  “Very well,” Faron snarls when he is met with silence. “We’ll do this the hard way.”

  He takes a torch from his Second and lifts it to the Spirit Tree. The closeness of the flame makes lightning bolts of anger flash through my blood. My axe grows warm in my hand.

  “You took something very precious to me, Garock of Kurah,” Faron calls out to the trees. “I quite like my face, yet you disfigure it without a second thought. Now, I will take something precious from you. Say farewell to your precious tree.”

  He thrusts the torch at the Spirit Three until the fire singes her willowy branches. I can no longer hang back in silence. I plant my feet in the branch underneath me, grip the trunk of the tree, and bellow a war cry. My Goddess scrambles up my back, clinging to me like a sharp-nailed kitten.

  “Faron!” I roar his name.

  Faron spins around and cranes his neck to find me above him in the tree. Kurah men are built like mountains, with warrior muscles and enough girth to be a human battering ram. Selith men are slender like women, with pale faces and light hair. They are children of the warm season and their skin is soft. They have never worn the scars and callouses of hard labor as they have never had to work hard to get what they want. The Kurah pray to the Goddess, but the Selith fashion themselves equal to the Gods. They are arrogant, selfish, and a blight on Naruda.

  This is the face of the man who has forced all of Naruda to bend to his family’s will. This is the face of the man who cares about nothing but enslaving other races and winning his family name lands and power. This is the man who has tried time and again to destroy the Kurah Tribe. I’m filled with blood-desire and the urge to split his face on the blade of my axe.

  Faron smiles. “Garock. There you are. What is that with you? Come now, daulín. Show your pretty face.”

  I remember Mara, the gypsy woman by the coast and I shift in my spot to better cover my Goddess. She sinks down behind me, hiding in my shadow.

  “Fight me like a man!” I bellow. “You and I. We end this strife between our races now.”

  “That would be assuming you are a man.” The violet flicker in Faron’s irises is dangerous. “You are nothing but a savage, and I won’t waste my time.” He flicks a gloved wrist towards us. “Kill them.” He stabs the torch into the Spirit Tree and her long-hanging branches begin to crackle with flames.

  The archers pull back their bows. I can take them. I can leap from this tree and end all of them with one killing blow from Swing.

  “We should go!” My Goddess’s voice echoes in my ear and her fingers struggle to hold her grip my shoulders. “Please!” she begs. It is not the Kurah way to run from a challenge, but I cannot let harm come to my Goddess. Even as my rage burns in my chest, I know that I can’t let harm come to her. This is not my fight.

  We dive just as the arrows make an arc over our heads. My lady clings to my back as I leap from tree to tree, bounding off branches, swinging on vines. Thin twigs snap against my arms and legs. When I come to a clearing, I lunge off from the tree and hit the dirt, hard. My muscles burn but I don’t waste time. I propel myself forward and break into a run.

  I hear their hooves behind us. I am fast on my feet, but it won’t be long before they catch us. At very least, I will give them a chase. My feet pound the ground and sweat drips down my chest and dampens my back. My Goddess clings to me and her Goddess-gift is tucked away at her chest.

  I realize all too late where we’re running towards. My feet come to a swift halt and dig into the dirt just in time. Clumps of dirt and stone gather around my feet and roll down, off the side of the steep cliff just inches away.

  We are at the Rift, the split in the word that separates the Highlands from the Lowlands. Down there is nothing but untamed wilderness and shadow. Even the Selith, who intend to claim all of Naruda for their own, are hesitant to step foot in the Lowlands. It’s not my first choice, but neither is getting flayed alive by the Faron. They are approaching quickly now, with lifted spears, as their ca’tars stomp the ground.

  I make a decision and lift my Goddess from my back to set her down on her two feet. She looks at me with wide, startled eyes.

  “Do you trust me?” I ask her.

  She is pale and her voice shakes. “I don’t even know your name.”

  “Garock,” I tell her. “I am Garock Rhinard, Chief of the Kurah Tribe.”

  “Kennedy Davis,” she says. “Of North Carolina.”

  “Kennedy of the North.” I take her wrists and position her arms around my neck. “Hold onto me and don’t look down.”

  “Where are we…?” her voice trails off when her eyes do the one thing I told her not to do, look down. They grow wider still as she fixes her sights on the deep cavern below us. “Oh, hell no.”

  “Hold on,” I remind her. She grips my tunic tightly and I tuck her against me, urging her legs around my waist. Nestled against me, my Goddess fits secure as a child.

  “Okay. Okay. On three,” she breathes. I can feel her heart beat rapidly against mine.

  “Yes,” I say, though I don’t understand her words. I want to comfort her. I want to let her know this plan will work.

  Should work, at least. We don’t have another choice. In my free hand, I grip the handle of my axe.

  “One…” my Goddess says.

  I jump. My feet lose the ground and find empty air. My Goddess clings to me tightly and I hear her scream over the howl of the wind. I grit my teeth and focus my energy. I shield my Goddess from the rocks and rubble that scrape us on the way down. As we draw closer, and closer to the rocky ground beneath us, my energy warms my chest, down my arm, and into Swing’s handle. Her etchings light up and glow white. She’s ready.

  I throw Swing’s blade into the stone and hold. She can cleave through anything now, more powerful than any weapon with my Kaul’s energy surging through her, and she cuts deep into the stone face. The muscles on my shoulder tense and yank sharply, but I don’t lose my grip. Instead, I hold on tighter.

  We’re slowing. The blade screeches loudly as it rips a crack straight through the stone and it slows our rapid descent.

  I stumble to the ground too quickly and fall on my side with a grunt. I make sure to hit the ground first, shielding my Goddess with my body. Small pebbles that have dislodged themselves from the cliff face come pouring down on us, like hard shards of rain. I shift to cover her from the falling rocks, they cut me and bruise my bones, but I will survive.

  We are both coughing and blinking stinging dirt from our eyes by time the yellow haze of rock dust clears. I roll off of my Goddess and sit.

  “Are you okay?” I ask.

  She is flat on the ground, clutching the small Goddess Gift. Her eyes are wide, her red hair fanned out
underneath her, and she pants as she stares at me.

  “Yes,” she breathes. “I think.”

  I crane my neck upward. Sure enough, the ca’tars have come to a halt at the cliff’s edge. They don’t dare to trespass on the Lowlands. If Faron wants us, he’ll have to find another way.

  When I turn back to her, it’s with a smile. “We are safe now.”

  CHAPTER SIX: KENNEDY

  We are safe now.

  It’s the last thing my captor/savior/whatever says, right before a final rock dislodges from the cliff and smacks him in the back of the head. His eyes cross, his mouth hangs open as though he’s about to say something, and he slumps forward. On top of me.

  I groan. What is this man made out of, lead? He’s about ten thousand pounds of pure muscle and while that’s, you know, impressive and all, if you’re into muscular guys like that…whatever, the point is, he’s heavy. He’s heavy and I haven’t been to the gym in about two years, and the last time I went to the gym, I could only lift the ten-pound weights.

  T-Bone squirms out of my arms and leaps free. “T-Bone!” I call out, but he’s already skittering across the stone floor and dashing into the trees. I can’t blame him. I’ve been a terrible dog mother. Still, I can’t lose him, not now, and I call out for him again, but with no response.

  I’m completely trapped. I grip the guy’s face. “Hey…guy. Garock. Wake up.”

  He’s breathing, at least, so that’s a good sign, but his eyes remain closed and his head is completely limp in my hands. After a couple failed attempts to shake him off, I have to shimmy out from underneath him. It takes a bit of maneuvering and I feel like I’m locked under a motorcycle, but I finally pry myself out and can breathe again.

  I should run now, right? Follow T-Bone’s example and head for the trees? I escaped the Scary-Blonde-Guy who burned down the tree, and now I have to shake Scary-Hercules-Guy who’s passed out on the floor. Admittedly, Scary-Hercules-Guy did technically save me from Scary-Blonde-Guy, but he also threw me down a cliff, calls me Goddess), and is covered in these vicious looking tribal tattoos, like he’s part of a gang or something.