Alien Salvation (10 page)

Tara nodded. “Fathers are protective of
their daughters. It’s their nature.” She smiled brightly. “But your
sister paved the way for you to have more than one man in your
life. In the end, if you’re happy your dad will adjust.”

Yes, brash and bold Jessica joining the
Imperial Clan had indeed knocked down the highest barriers of
Aaron’s acceptance of the very non-Earther concept of Kalquorian
marriage.

One other concern, one even bigger than
Lindsey’s fear of condemnation, had to be faced. In the clarity of
her mother’s experience and faith, she knew she was safe to get her
honest opinion. “Is it too soon to feel a real connection? You
know. To be in love?”

Tara’s smile broadened. “I knew your
father was the one within five minutes. I think your clan knew that
about you just as quickly.”

With that, she left the
room.

“My clan.” Lindsey tasted the sound of
the words on her tongue. It rang true to her ears, but she worried
it was only infatuation, a temporary devotion brought on because
Bacoj, Vax and Japohn were the first men she’d had sex with. And
did they really feel drawn to her too as Tara implied? Enough to
make the relationship permanent?

Too many questions. To find the
answers, Lindsey would have to get past her fears. She wondered if
she was strong enough to do that.

She moved towards the open door. Japohn
suddenly stood there, making her start with surprise.

“We ready soon.” His brows drew
together, and his words were clipped. Despite her attraction to
him, the quick-tempered alien made Lindsey nervous. It wasn’t the
ease with which he became irritable so much. She’d lived with
Jessica too many years to be worried about frequent bouts of bad
humor, often over imagined offenses. It was that the man was so
big. Unlike Lindsey’s younger, finely boned sister, Japohn looked
like damage incarnate. Especially when he glowered as he did now.
He scared her.

He also made her sexually excited. The
little taste she’d had of his dominance was definitely a turn on,
something that still surprised Lindsey. Looking up at the looming
threat that was the handsome Nobek made her imagine letting him do
things to her she’d never thought of before.

Using the soft voice that had so often
quieted Jessica’s storms, Lindsey said, “You look upset.” She
traced her fingertips over his sleeveless biceps as if to calm him,
but she was actually enjoying the granite muscle.

Japohn’s gaze went to her touch, and
his expression lightened a smidge. His angry tone gave way to
remorse. “I find no food. I sorry you eat ration.”

That the fierce alien allowed her to
see guilt moved her. Lindsey sidled closer to him until their
bodies almost touched. “It’s good to eat anything. I don’t mind
emergency rations.”

Her hands seemed to take on a life of
their own, eagerly moving up to his shoulders, running over the
plains of his sculpted chest hidden beneath the clinging fabric of
his formsuit. She couldn’t be near him or the other two without
wanting to touch. “Can I make you feel better?” she asked in a
whisper.

His groin swelled at her words. They
were near enough that she felt his twin organs press against her
belly. In a strangled voice Japohn said. “No time. You make I want
much. I go too fast. You no pleasure.”

Lindsey didn’t care if she climaxed.
Something in the tortured look he wore made her want to soothe him.
“It’s okay. Your clan is being very kind to us. I want you to know
I’m grateful.”

She pressed herself against him,
delighting in the rigid lengths that spoke of his desire for her.
She wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling his face down towards
hers.

“Lindsey,” he whispered, and she
shivered to hear her name on his lips before his kiss swallowed her
mouth. She rubbed her belly against the staves sandwiched between
them, and Japohn groaned into her mouth. His body stiffened. He
held her so close she thought they might meld to one
another.

She ground against him, rubbing hard
against his cocks and he groaned again, louder. Lindsey pushed one
hand between them, massaging his sexes through his formsuit. He
went rigid all over. She felt the slow pulse of his release, the
warmth of his seed wetting her abdomen through their clothes. She
ached for her own climax, wanting to feel the Kalquorian plunging
into her depths, but Lindsey knew anticipation would make their
eventual coupling all the more delightful. She’d always been a
proponent of delayed gratification, and she had every intention of
making Japohn reward her for her patience later. That he would
willingly do so, she had no doubt.

He unlocked his mouth from hers. A
smile quirked his features, the relaxed expression making him the
most striking of his clan. Lindsey’s ardor went up a few notches to
see how stunning he was when not scowling. She felt her power
keenly, her ability to ease the most bestial needs of men. It was
heady stuff.

“Gratitude.” Japohn shook his head and
corrected himself. “Thank you. Feel better.”

“My pleasure, Japohn.” She slipped from
him with a smile and located a clean blouse to change into while he
quickly swapped formsuits. Before they left the sleeping room for
the main cabin, Japohn kissed her again, his touch as gentle as any
Vax had given her thus far.

No, being a permanent part of these
men’s lives might not be such a bad thing, she thought.

* * * *

The shuttle lifted into the air like a
drunk standing up from his barstool and trying to find his legs.
Lindsey’s stomach wobbled uneasily with the shuttle, and she braced
herself against the seat she sat on. The restraints Vax had
insisted everyone wear were welcome stabilizers for the occupants
of the main cabin.

The ride smoothed out after they
reached altitude and began their journey. Lindsey’s brief moment of
motion sickness eased, and once Vax released his restraints,
everyone else followed suit.

Bacoj called back to them from his
position in the cockpit. “We go one-third way before overnight
recharge.”

From what he’d told them earlier,
Lindsey had figured out the Kalquorian search party was on Big Pine
Key, where the McInnesses had extended family. Lindsey and her
parents had gone underground in Pompano Beach following Jessica’s
coronation as Kalquor’s Empress. Those helping them hide had
reported that government agents had searched Big Pine Key, intent
on arresting them. The Kalquorians were following the same
reasoning that perhaps their monarch’s family had run to familiar
faces for help.

“Three days from Fort Lauderdale to Big
Pine as the crow flies?” Aaron sniffed. “Not very fast. We could
have made it to Key West in less than two hours in a hover shuttle
taking U.S. 1.”

Lindsey scowled despite knowing her
father was tired and hot from the hurried packing and moving to the
shuttle. And he still regarded the aliens with suspicion, putting
him on edge. “What hover shuttle?” she pointed out, feeling a
little mean. After all, the Kalquorians didn’t have to take them
along. Tired or not, he should be grateful.

“I meant in the old days.”

Vax, bless his good-natured heart, took
no offense. He even smiled at Aaron, his expression encouraging.
“Slow, but no walk. This good.”

Aaron reddened, Vax’s gentleness
shaming him when Lindsey’s impatience couldn’t. “Yes, it is good.
This is a comfortable seat and there are plenty of emergency
rations. Thanks again for taking us with you.”

Vax nodded. “Good you come.” He jerked
his head at Japohn. “We look out?”

Japohn, seated against the partition
separating the cockpit from the main cabin, reached up to tap the
control panel. The other walls and the floor seemed to blink out,
and Tara gasped as the outside view suddenly appeared.

“Cool vid display, huh Mom? It beats
windows by a mile,” Lindsey said. She leaned over to watch the
Florida coastline slide beneath her feet. Their seats seemed to
float in midair, and she couldn’t help but grin like a kid on a
rollercoaster ride. This was fun.

Tara had a death grip on her seat, but
she relaxed after a few moments. Watching the blue-green water foam
up on the beach was a delight for Lindsey. Soon the strip of sand
gave out to the waterside bars and million-dollar homes with miles
of docks.

Tara’s smile had the far-off wispiness
of reminiscence. “Look at the intracoastal. I love taking boat
rides out here. Remember when the girls rented that yacht for our
twentieth anniversary, Aaron?”

“That was an amazing night,” Lindsey’s
father agreed, and she warmed under the smile he gave her. She and
Jessica had secretly spent three months cleaning one company’s
party yachts in exchange for the insanely expensive four-hour boat
ride up and down the intracoastal waterway. The hours spent
scrubbing the huge vessels on top of part-time jobs and high school
classes had been worth it. Lindsey would never forget her parents’
glowing faces when they’d boarded the yacht to discover fifty
friends waiting to toast their long union.

“
Boats sunk,” Japohn
observed.

He was right. Boat after boat, still
moored to their piers, hung just below the water’s surface,
wavering in the sunlit waves.

“And the houses are vandalized,”
Lindsey added. Many of the fine homes were burnt-out hulks. Lindsey
remembered the fires that lit up the skies in the weeks that
followed Armageddon. The structures not burned to the timbers were
clearly defaced, windows smashed and walls
graffiti-marked.

It always amazed Lindsey that when
mankind unleashed its rage, the focus of destruction seemed to
center on itself. No matter they’d already been dealt such a
devastating blow when the major cities went up in poisoned mushroom
clouds. The instant the world disintegrated, people had turned on
themselves, further destroying the trappings of civilization. The
few anti-government riots in the years before Armageddon had
degenerated into people setting fire to their own neighborhoods,
looting their local shops, and beating on their neighbors before
soldiers had quieted the uprisings by shooting everyone in sight.
It was the ultimate act of self-hatred.

Tara’s voice was resigned. “What a
shame. Anger is never helpful.”

Aaron was equally hushed. “No nuclear
wasteland here, but the destruction is still pretty
bad.”

Japohn stared at the damage with
clinical interest. “Nuclear affect here some day. Wind and ocean
carry radiation.”

Tara grimaced. “Not exactly mankind’s
finest hour, is it?”

Lindsey pointed excitedly. “Look.
There’s a bunch of people over there.”

Japohn spoke to Bacoj in their
language, and the Dramok shifted their course to fly over the knot
of Earthers gathered in the parking lot of a waterfront
bar.

“Look for injured, need help
immediate,” Vax said.

The upturned faces as the shuttle
approached were drawn, dirty and, in the case of the men, in
various stages of stubble. Glints of metal made Lindsey cry
out.

“They’ve got blasters!”

Even as sparks appeared at the ends of
the firearms, Japohn waved at her reassuringly. “No hit this
distance. Lindsey safe.”

“I guess it’s a good thing you didn’t
crash here.” Lindsey swallowed at the bestial expressions of her
fellow Earthers.

They passed over the dozen or so
survivors. The sounds they made didn’t reach the group in the
shuttle, but the stretched wide mouths erupting spittle let Lindsey
know they screamed wild hatred at the Kalquorian ship. She saw no
civilization in any of the faces that followed their passage. If
Blockhead’s group had resembled cavemen, this one was something
even more primitive and brutal. She shuddered at the expressions,
devoid of any rational thought.

Tara wept quietly. Acceptance that life
was suffering didn’t mean even the most dedicated Buddhist wasn’t
overwhelmed by it sometimes.

Aaron did his best to comfort her.
“Honey, it’s going to be okay.”

“Ignore me,” she said, trying to
downplay her heartbreak. “It’s just so hard to see us reduced to
this, like brutal animals.”

Bacoj had shifted in his seat to look
back at them through the doorway. “No more vid,” he told Japohn,
who immediately switched it off. The walls of the cabin returned,
shutting out the remains of Earth.

Lindsey wondered if everywhere on her
planet, people had fallen so low. Seeing the ruins of Fort
Lauderdale, she wondered how much worse the major cities that still
stood were. She’d heard stories to turn her hair white.

She got out of her seat and walked up
the aisle so she could talk to Bacoj without yelling over the
occasionally sputtering engine. “We’re not stopping in Miami, are
we?”

His fingers flew over the glossy black
panel before him. Strange colored symbols lit its surface. “Where
My-mee?” he asked, stumbling over the city’s name.

A topographical map of the southern tip
of Florida appeared in the air before him. Lindsey leaned over him
to point, her breast brushing his shoulder. “Here,” she pointed,
amused to see his face redden as he glanced at where she made
contact with him. “The gangs have taken the city over. It’s a
definite no-man’s land, especially for three Kalquorians in a
busted shuttle.”