Alien Desire by Hannah Haze
Chapter eleven - Emma
The world outside the station is bright and sparkling and Tor wants to go out into it again. His eagerness is infectious and I can’t help but catch it, rushing into my snowsuit and skipping out with him to the snow mobiles.
This time we ride one each. It takes Tor a few attempts to work his snowmobile. Twice he zooms off backwards and once he comes to such a sudden halt that he very nearly somersaults over his handlebars. I laugh and the noise catches his attention and he smiles at me.
His face has clearly rarely worn such an expression but it suits him. It melts away the fierce angles and brutality, softening him and drawing attention to his eyes. Under the sunlight they glint and glitter, rivers of molten gold.
I race away from him across the glimmering ice and he tears after me, struggling to keep pace. The fierce bumps of the landscape make me bounce in my seat. It’s exhilarating and I laugh some more.
We stop to watch the distant dogs skip across the landscape and I show him the patches of ice worn so smooth by the passing winds that they reflect the sky like a mirror.
The illusion is dizzying and for moments knowing which way is up and which way down is impossible. We stand side by side and peer down into the reflective pane, our images peeking back up at us.
What a funny pair we are, him huge and deadly pale as the snow, me small and fragile and richly brown. He crouches down and places a palm on his image. “Tor, male, Gryton,” he says, then places his palm over mine, “Emma, female, human.”
“Yes,” I say in wonderment. How has he learned so much already? “Human.” I point to myself then to him.
“Gryton,” he repeats. Then points back to me and that word, the one that does strange things to my insides, comes tumbling from his mouth. “Omega.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
He points to my reflection. “Omega,” then his, “Alpha.”
“Alpha,” I repeat and a spiral of colour races across his skin, his eyes swirling with excitement. I take a step away, unsure what this means. How two words can elicit such power.
I remember the stories my mum would tell me when I was a kid. Of witches and magic and spells. Words could create whole worlds in my head. And the words in these stories could turn princes to frogs and lions to stone.
Is he casting a spell on me?
In this shimmering blue and white mirror, it feels like it. It feels like it when he holds me with those eyes, when he touches me.
I hurry back to my vehicle. I’m afraid I’m losing my mind.
Over the last few days Tor has suggested I sit in his lap many times. The requests have been so comical. I, a grown woman, a space cadet, have not sat on a lap since I was five years old. What absurdity! And yet each time I’ve had an overwhelming urge to do just that.
I lead him to the wreckage of my ship first. I don’t know why, but I want him to see it. He walks through the debris solemnly and to my surprise he does not touch the carcasses, or search his way through the remains. He simply observes, pausing at each of the bodies of my crewmates and lowering his gaze to the ground, his lips moving silently, almost as if he is praying.
What do they do with the dead of his world? Do they bury them? Cremate them? Cast them out into the sea? Build huge monuments and plinths to them? Or do they leave them where they’ve fallen?
He turns back to his vehicle and our drive to his ship is more subdued. Here he conducts a systematic examination of every piece of his shattered ship, collecting certain pieces and loading them onto his vehicle.
I sit on my own bike, wrapped up in my fur coat as I munch my way through another pack of his berries. They are irresistible, so sweet and flavoursome, and I realise I’ve grown so used to the bland taste of space food I’d hardly been aware of the lack of flavour anymore. The sugar mixed with the slight sourness of the juice mix on my tongue and give me such a hit my head buzzes. It’s better than any booze or drugs.
Finally, he seems satisfied and we start the journey back.
We haven’t gone far when a sudden mist sweeps across the flat landscape and engulfs us in a thick blanket. Our visibility is impaired and the temperature within the cloud is bitterly cold. Tor edges his vehicle up close to mine and we crawl forward, the navigation system showing us the way. Without it we’d be lost completely.
It is agonising work and my head aches with the force of my concentration, my fingers and my toes numb with cold. My goggles are useless, fogging every few seconds, so I remove them though my eyes immediately stream with tears. Wiping at them with my sleeve, I lose control of my vehicle for just a fraction of a second.
It veers to the right and teeters over the lip of a hidden crevasse. I grab at the handlebars and try to jerk it around. But it’s too late and I crash through the fissure, the bike out of my control.
I yell, tugging to the right and to the left, scrabbling at the brakes. I try to force it back, I try to stop. It’s futile.
My stomach plunges. The white ice streaks past my vision. I lift in my seat. For a moment I am weightless and falling, waiting for the impact.
Then I crash downwards, smashing onto smooth ice. The impact jolts my spine and my head is thrown forward. The snowmobile splinters beneath my thighs and skids across the surface.
I halt, sweating despite the cold.
All I hear is silence and the pounding of my own heart.
And then the ice roars and splits in two.
I plunge through, screaming as I sink, my grip on the bike now lost.
My body hits freezing cold liquid that sucks the oxygen straight from my lungs, my limbs stiffening against the impact. And then I’m underwater, the world a blur of icy blue and spots of black as I struggle to stay conscious.
I force myself to move. Despite the numbness overtaking my body, I make my legs kick and my head breaks through the surface. I gulp for air and immediately sink back down, pulled by my weighty clothing. I kick again, but something curls around my ankle and drags me down. I struggle to free my foot as I’m towed deeper and deeper.
The water grows murkier and murkier. And then my wrist is caught too and my other thigh. Strong, twine-like tentacles latch onto me and pull me down, down, down.
My lungs beg for oxygen, my head pounds, my vision darkens.
No, no.
Not like this.
Don’t let me die like this.
I’m not done yet. Not finished.
I squirm, my chest burning fiercely with the need to breathe, but I’m caught. Trapped. Bound.
And then a flash of colour darts across my vision.
Tor.
He yanks at my attacker, lashing at its tentacles with his sharp teeth and freeing my arm.
More tentacles rise from the depths to swipe at Tor, and he swerves and swoops away. Then he lashes out, pounding the tentacles with his fists, kicking them with his legs, beating them back. He’s strong, gliding through the liquid easily, his punches hard.
He swims towards me, wrestling with the giant limbs until I’m released. Then, gripping my arm, he propels us to the surface, more feelers chasing us upwards.
We burst into the air and Tor yanks me from the liquid, dragging me up onto the ice.
I gasp for air, my lungs screaming with pain. My head pounds with pressure, eyes swimming with liquid.
I wish this nightmare was over, but it’s not.
Giant tentacles smash through the ice, breaking it into jagged shards.
“Move Emma!” Tor shouts, but I’m too late. A tentacle grabs me around the waist and drags me across the ice. I scrabble for purchase. Digging my fingernails into the ice. Wriggling and kicking as the monster pulls me towards the water.
Tor dives on top of the tentacles. His muscles are taut and strained, his sharp teeth bared and his eyes flash with fire. He yanks the tentacle from my waist and I find my hands and knees and scuttle away.
Tor tears at the monster’s limb with his bare hands. The skin splits and green goo oozes from the wound as the injured tentacle sinks under the ice.
No sooner has it gone, but another pierces through the crack in the ice. I scream. But this time the creature latches on to Tor and heaves him back into the water.
“Tor!” I yell as he disappears beneath the water. “Tor!”
The surface of the lake ripples and crests, then falls still. I can’t see him through the dark liquid.
I scream his name twice more as my heart thumps in my chest and my ears. The silence and the stillness drag on.
And then he breaks the surface, liquid cascading over his sleek body as he shoots up onto the ice.
More tentacles blast after him and Tor grabs me and rolls us away.
We scrabble to our feet and run. My legs are so cold every step is agony. He’s faster than me, but he has my hand in his and pulls me along, yanking me up when I stumble, racing me up the steep bank of the crevasse and away from the frozen lake.
The climb is difficult and my frozen fingers struggle to grip the ice. Several times I slip, sliding down, but every time Tor grabs me and hauls me back up.
At the top, he stops, and I collapse down to my knees, desperate to breathe. Below, the creature continues to thrash its tentacles across the ice, searching for us. Great pieces of jagged ice splinter and float on the rippling surface before sinking slowly into the gloom.
I shake violently and my teeth rattle in my mouth. I am so cold. So cold it hurts. My head and my chest are pure pain.
“Come, Emma,” Tor says, jerking at my arm. He’s lost his snowsuit and stands in his skin tight outfit, soaked, the droplets of liquid freezing as they skirt down his body.
His stance is broad and violent. His hands are tight fists at his sides, every tendon and muscle of his body rigid with tension. His eyes burn fierce and his sharp teeth flash in his mouth. His shoulders rise and fall rapidly.
He looks like a monster himself.
I shirk away, terrified and cold. Yet, strangely struck by the magnificent male before me. The one who just rescued me.
“Come,” he growls.
I shake my head. I’m too cold. I can’t move.
He yanks at me again and when I don’t budge, he mutters something in his own language and scoops me up into his arms and onto his quad bike. Settling me at the front, he wraps his hard body around me.
The thick mist still persists, visibility still muted, but Tor revs the engine and slams down his foot on the accelerator, racing us home.
I think I must pass out because when I open my eyes again and the world comes hazily into view, I find myself inside the station. Warm air blows against my back and my wet clothes have been stripped away. I’m dressed in just my underthings, swaddled in blankets with Fluffy curled up and snoring in my lap.
I lift my head and realise it was resting on something warm and hard. Tor’s shoulder. I look up and find him glancing down at me. He’s sitting up against me, stripped down too, and we’re wrapped in the blankets together.
“Emma cold?”
I nod. “Yes, still a little cold.”
He encircles my waist with his arm and pulls me against him, rubbing his palm up and down the outside of my arms. I rest my head back against his chest. His heart thuds beneath my ear, more frantically than it did before. And he squeezes me closer.
Our communication remains limited and yet I know what he’s feeling. Because I feel it too.
We nearly lost each other out there, and the magnitude of it makes me shake.
“You saved me,” I murmur into his skin. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“My Omega,” he says in reply as if this is an answer to my statement. I lift my eyes to his and he stares down at me with such intensity that it warms my skin.
I don’t think anyone has ever looked at me that way in my whole life. It’s as if he wants me and only me. As if he’d risk his life for me over and over again.
It can’t be real, can it? It must be my imagination, my foolish imagination racing away with me.
Maybe it is, but I don’t care.
I wrap my hand around the back of his neck and pull his face towards mine, pressing my lips against his.
His lips are smoother and softer and warmer than I could possibly have imagined. The taste of him spills across my lips and into my mouth, rich and deep, like nothing I’ve ever tasted before.
A kiss.
A caress of my lips against his.
But it isn’t matched by him and I lean away and peer at him. Was I wrong?
His lips are a multitude of colours, shimmering and beautiful, and his eyes are wide with wonderment. He raises a long finger and touches my bottom lip, tracing it slowly from one corner to the other. His eyes sparkle.
“Lips,” I tell him, capturing the tip of his finger between mine, “kiss.”
His hand moves to cup the back of my head and he pulls me towards him, pressing our lips together again.
“Kiss,” I say into his mouth, a little more breathy than I’d intended.
I kiss him softly and he starts to respond, copying the movement, sweeping his wet lips over mine. The sensation makes my skin tingle as if it’s coming alive, as if something inside me that has lain dormant for so long is finally awakening.
His fingers tangle in my hair and trip against the base of my skull and something sparks there so violently, I gasp. He tugs me closer, pressing my body into his. In response, I run my tongue against the seam of his lips and he parts them, letting me slide my tongue inside and he shivers.
I tilt away and smile at him. His eyelids have drifted shut and his whole face dances with colour as if he’s floating in bliss. I don’t think he’s ever been kissed before. I don’t have a whole lot of experience myself but everything tells me this is new to him.
His eyes draw open.
“More kissing,” he sighs.
How can I resist?
I lean in and kiss him with more passion this time, showing him kisses can be soft and hard, slow and frantic. I kiss him with my whole mouth, thrusting my tongue deep inside his and then biting down on his fat bottom lip. He groans and responds, his own tongue gliding over my lips and into my mouth, brushing against mine.
It’s like being pulled under the water again, suspended in time, lost to the feel of our lips against one another, floating in his arms, weightless as if I am back in space. Everything is this. Just this.
I kiss him and kiss him and kiss him again.