Her Alien Rebel by Presley Hall
1
Felicity
“I hada dream that I had the baby here. On Nuthora.”
Sadie swishes the modified loincloth that she’s washing back and forth in the water, rinsing loose the sparse suds that we’ve managed to create from the soap the Voxerans use. It’s hardly Tide laundry detergent, but it gets the clothes mostly clean. Mostly being the key word.
“I just realized I’m pregnant,” she continues, glancing over at me as she pulls the sopping bundle of cloth out of the river and starts wringing it out. “And I’m already having nightmares about it.”
I sit back on the flat rock next to the stream, glancing over at Sadie as I scrub at a particularly stubborn stain on a skirt. Her strawberry blonde hair is pulled into a loose knot at the back of her neck, and a few loose tendrils flutter in the light breeze.
All of the women are down here today, doing as much of the laundry as we can before we move on tomorrow from the spot where we’ve been camping, here in the Nuthoran wilderness. “Laundry” is pushing it, though. I used to think taking my clothes to a laundromat when I lived in Las Vegas was a pain in the ass. Back on Earth, I would have given anything for a washer and dryer in my apartment.
Now I’d give anything just to find one at all. Anywhere.
“It makes sense that you’re afraid,” I reassure the petite blonde woman, setting the skirt down for a moment. “This whole situation is weird enough as it is. And now you’re bringing a baby into that. Anyone would be scared.”
“I just—I dreamed about this little baby running into all kinds of dangers. I don’t even know if it was a boy or a girl. I just kept chasing him or her, past those awful vines, with a gicnuk flying overhead, being charged by that massive, shaggy creature that Jaro and I fought when we were in the woods. Every time, I would get so close, almost able to scoop the baby up and run, but I’d be frozen in place. It was terrible.” Sadie frowns, and I can see that her normally pale skin is even lighter than normal. “I don’t know, I guess it’s just strange trying to balance such conflicting feelings. I’m so excited to have a baby with Jaro, but I’m so worried about doing it here.”
I open my mouth to answer, but before I can say anything, a heavy grunt from several yards away distracts me momentarily. I glance over toward the clearing in the woods where the sound came from, instantly on alert.
It’s not anything to be afraid of, though. It’s just a couple of the Voxeran warriors grappling, ones I don’t know all that well, their pearlescent blue skin glimmering in the sunlight as they wrestle back and forth.
It’s kind of funny how much they train, I think, watching them with amusement as they grunt and groan, twisting back and forth as they try to bring each other down.
It’s hardly an ugly sight—I’ve never seen an unattractive Voxeran male, although some of them are more handsome than others. Their muscles flex and ripple, bunching under their sleek blue skin and white markings, making it clear that both of them are in peak fighting shape.
Which is probably for the best, honestly. In the time I’ve been here, it’s been startling to discover firsthand just how many hazards there are on Nuthora, waiting to try to injure, kill, or eat us. Of all the places our ship could have crash-landed after our own government attempted to sell us to alien buyers in exchange for weapons and tech, this has to be one of the most dangerous.
On the other hand, at least we were able to find some protection here. The Voxerans have been sheltering and defending us ever since Charlotte made contact with them and mated with their leader, and that’s probably got a lot to do with why we’re all still alive.
But since this is a prison planet, it’s not just the wildlife that would like to hurt or kill us. Most of the other aliens here would attack us without hesitation too.
My friend Charlotte isn’t the only one who formed a mate bond with one of the Voxeran warriors. It’s happened to several other women as well, including Sadie. I glance back at her as she dips another loincloth into the water—probably one of her mate’s.
“Did you tell Jaro about the dream?” I ask, setting my own leather skirt aside. It’s as clean as it’s probably going to get.
“Of course.” She smiles, and I can see in that brief flash how truly happy she is. “I tell him everything. We don’t have any secrets from each other.”
Must be nice,I think ruefully. I can’t imagine being able to be so open with someone, trusting someone so much that you’d share anything with them, no matter how dark or ugly or frightening. That’s a massive amount of vulnerability, and while I’m happy to help others figure out how to be vulnerable, it hasn’t been my strong suit in a long, long time.
“Well, what did he say?” I lean forward.
“He said he’d protect our child from anything and everything that might try to harm it, no matter what that might be.”
“You know that’s true,” I point out. “Jaro will be a great father.”
It seems weird to say that about an alien, but there’s no doubt or hesitation in my voice. I would have scoffed at the idea of aliens existing at all not that long ago, let alone them being ideal partners, but the Voxerans have proven themselves over and over again to be good, honorable men, willing to protect those they love to the death.
And there’s no question that Jaro loves Sadie, and she loves him. They can’t keep their eyes off of each other, or their hands—which is, of course, how Sadie wound up pregnant on a hostile planet while Prince Droth and the other warriors try to figure out how to get us off it.
The fact that we have any hope at all of escaping this prison planet is thanks to Sadie and Jaro, who found the rare mineral that was used as a key component in an interplanetary communication device. Kaide and Raina also deserve a lot of credit, since they took a small team to the dangerous city of Pascia to have the communication device built.
“I know,” Sadie says softly. “Jaro will be an incredible dad. I trust him to keep us safe. And I would do anything in my power to protect our baby too. I just—” She lets out a sigh, looking around us. “I just want to be someplace where he doesn’t have to make that promise, you know? Somewhere that he can let his guard down too, where we can be a happy family without freaking monsters trying to eat us all the time.”
I can’t help but laugh at that, even though it wasn’t exactly meant to be funny, and Sadie does too, lightening the mood. It’s just so ridiculous that her words weren’t even an exaggeration. There really are monsters all over Nuthora, and most of them would be happy to make us into their dinner.
“Remember what your therapist back on Earth used to tell you to repeat,” I remind her, reaching out to squeeze her hand. It’s slippery with soap, her fingers small and delicate, but I know how strong Sadie can be. She’s a survivor, just like all of us—back on Earth as well as here.
“The only way out is through,” Sadie echoes. She draws in a deep breath through her nose and releases it, then smiles at me. “It does help.”
“Good. None of us know what the future will hold. But at least you have someone who loves you by your side. That counts for a lot. No matter what, you and Jaro have each other.”
“That’s true.” Sadie flushes lightly, folding the tunic, and I can see the soft glow in her face just from thinking about him.
“Felicity?” Another voice breaks through our conversation, and I turn around to see one of the other women, Ivy, walking toward us with a basket of laundry. Her auburn hair gleams in the sunlight as she cocks her head slightly. “Can I talk to you for a minute? If you’re not busy?”
“I see your next client is here,” Sadie says in a teasing tone. “Felicity Browning, Nuthoran therapist. Your clientele is small, but boy, do we have plenty to talk about.”
I can’t help but grin. “I mean, you do know I used to be a bartender back on Earth. I’ve been an armchair therapist for years now.”
What I don’t say, of course, is the thing that I haven’t ever told anyone—that I wish more than anything that I’d been able to go to school to really be a therapist, that I hadn’t screwed up so much and squandered all my chances through my own stupid mistakes. I wish I could talk to someone about that, but that would mean admitting to everything else, too. The reason I could never save enough money. The reason I dropped out before tuition was due, over and over again, or never even made it to being able to enroll.
I turn to Ivy, about to ask her what she wants to talk about, when there’s a sudden commotion over in the main part of the camp. There’s the sound of someone shouting excitedly and more raised voices, and as some of it carries over, I hear the mention of Vox—the home planet of the Voxerans.
“Oh my god,” Sadie exclaims, dropping the shirt she’s holding. “They must have made contact!”
My heart leaps in my chest at her words. Ever since Rhesk and Vael got the interplanetary communicator working, Droth has been trying to contact someone on Vox. But it’s been tricky. He and the others wound up here in the first place because of their part in trying to overthrow his corrupt uncle, Drokar, who usurped power when Droth’s father died. The Voxeran prince has to make sure that whenever he does finally get in touch with someone on his home planet, it’s a warrior who’s still loyal to him.
The other women look at each other as the raised voices carry over to us, and I can feel the excitement rising as we all scramble to our feet, gathering up the remaining laundry and shoving it back into baskets so that we can run back to camp. This could mean a chance to get off this planet, away from the other marauding prisoners and myriad vicious creatures that put us in constant danger.
It could mean safety and a home for us, not to mention a place where the pregnant women like Elizabeth, Charlotte, and Sadie can start their families in some semblance of peace.
The Voxerans who were wrestling in the clearing are hurrying to the camp as well, and we fall in behind them, all of us chattering excitedly until we reach Droth. As we come to a stop, we all immediately go silent.
Everyone else is already crowded around the Voxeran prince. He’s sitting on a tree stump, leaning forward intently toward the communicator, an innocuous looking small black box. Axen, Kaide, and Bohrir are standing next to Droth, and Charlotte is just behind him, her hand on her mate’s shoulder as she waits along with the others.
Sadie, Ivy, and I are near the back of the crowd, but I can still hear the voice on the other end of the communicator as someone responds from a planet hundreds of thousands of miles away. It’s deep and gruff—even deeper than the other Voxeran warriors—and something about it sends a shiver down my spine.
“We need a ship,” I hear Droth say, his voice urgent. “A large one. And we need the rescue op to happen as soon as possible. The other prisoners here are after the communicator we managed to build, so be careful. It’s dangerous here. We’ve already had a number of close calls—”
Excitement fills me as the alien prince works out the details of the possible rescue with the Voxeran on the other end of the communicator—the man named Ren, whoever he is. And along with the thrill of excitement, a strange feeling of anticipation expands inside my chest, making my breath catch.
This could finally be it.
We might be getting off Nuthora.
