Marauder Cygnus: A Scifi Alien Shifter Romance (Mating Wars Book 1) (2 page)

“
W
hat are you doing
, brother?” I hold my blade out to him.

“Cygnus,” he says. “You know what I’m doing.”

My brother, Aegus, has stolen supplies, and he’s loading them into a scouting pod.

Our Marauder fleet has already spent 20 years accelerating toward the humans’ home system of Sol, and we’re flying through the void at 80% of light speed. We’ve all woken up from hibernation long enough to turn our fleet around and run the engines in the other direction for another 20 years. Long enough to break and slow down our ships down enough to stop in Sol, rather than fly right through.

The engines are about to fire on, and all Marauders should be hibernating by now.

But not my brother Aegus.

“I know what you are doing,” I say, “but I don’t understand why.”

Aegus is up against the wall of the scouting pod, and I push the blade up against the skin of his neck.

“I believe breeding with the humans will bring about the Seraphic Form,” Aegus says.

My ears stand erect and I wiggle them in frustration. More religious bullshit.

“The Seraphic Form is like light speed,” I say. “We strive for it, but can never reach it.”

“But I believe we can,” Aegus says. “And if the humans are the end of our journey, we can’t invade them like normal. We have to treat them as equals—”

I slam my fist into the pod, and press the knife into his skin until I see a few small drops of blood trickly down his neck.

Aegus has pretended to be a model Marauder. He’s strong and fights nearly as well as I do. No one suspected him. No one but me.

“You fooled everyone,” I say. “Almost.”

“I’m going to take the pod,” Aegus says. “Separate from the main fleet, and continue on at 80% of lightspeed for several more years. I’ll reach Sol many years before the main fleet. I’ll prove that I’m right, and message the fleet before you arrive. You can do with the information as you please.”

I’m holding the blade perfectly steady, as any slip would slit my brother’s throat. Despite my steady hand, I’m anything but calm.

I narrow my eyes until they’re nothing but slits. One thrust of the knife and I can do what I’m supposed to. I can kill my own brother to ensure the survival of my race. We know the humans are advanced, and if they resist us, it will not be an easy victory for us to win. If Aegus arrives years ahead of the fleet, the humans will gain a tremendous edge.

I look into Aegus’s green eyes, and I see complete conviction. He truly believes in what he’s doing, which is more than I can say for myself. All that drives me is the need to mate. And to kill anything that gets in the way of that.

The bear DNA that has been spliced into us to allow for hibernation heightens our need to mate and protect those we care about. My brother included.

I pull the knife away, and I study the blood dripping off the blade. It’s our family’s blood, and I realize that if I kill my brother, I don’t deserve to mate.

“You truly believe?” I ask him, still examining the bloody knife.

“Trust me, Cygnus, Sol is the end of our race’s long journey.”

“Go!” I say. “I’ll follow you.”

Aegus hugs me, then jumps into the pod. “I knew you’d do the right thing. Take that pod,” Aegus says, tilting his head toward an adjacent pod. “I’ve loaded it with biofuel for you.”

“You knew I’d follow you?” I ask him.

“I prayed you would,” he says, before slamming his hatch closed.

As soon as his hatch is sealed, a robotic arm grabs hold of it and carries it toward the bay where it will launch out and continue on toward Sol.

“What the fuck am I doing?” I ask myself, still holding the bloodied knife.

And then three fellow Marauders float into the room behind me, their blades drawn.

Aegus sabotaged the security systems before his escape, and I only followed him because he’d been acting erraticly since we’d awoken from hibernation. I didn’t think anyone else had followed us, but I was wrong.

“Cygnus!” Zarek shouts.

Zarek is my friend—or he was, at least—and he’s with Tager and Gent.

“I’m going with my brother,” I say, holding up the knife. “Will you stop me?”

The marauder fleet only goes through a one-week period of zero-g. Just long enough for all the ships to turn around, check their engines, and initiate a braking burn. Most marauders neglect to train for zero-g combat. Not me. I live for combat, and wanting to be as deadly as possible in all situations means I’ve trained hard at zero-g.

An alarm wails across the room. “Two minutes until engine burn. Last call to hibernate.”

If I were a coward, I could jump into the pod and run, but the three of them might be able to blow up both my pod and Aegus’s pod before we got away.

Gent starts to turn around, and I see him pushing off Zarek. I realize he’s going to run. Tager and Zarek will fight me, while Gent makes sure someone blasts my brother’s pod into vapor.

No time to think.

I throw the blade.

In zero-g, there’s no need to arc it, and though Gent is over twenty Marauder lengths away, the blade flies straight and true.

I kick off the pod and fly toward them, floating just behind the blade, which jams right into Gent’s spine. He twitches violently for a few moments, and then falls dead still before zero-g causes his body to float away, lifeless.

Moments later, Zarek is right in front of me—or under me—it’s hard to tell in zero-g. Zarek is holding a blade, but not for long.

He slashes at me, but I shift to bear form in mid-flight. The extra mass slows me down just enough that Zarek misses, and I claw his arm off before he can recover from his missed attack.

I shift back to marauder form and grab Zarek’s dismembered arm by the bicep.

Tager is floating slowly toward me, his blade pointed straight at me. He expected a big fat bear for his target, but since I shifted back to marauder form, he’s caught off guard.

He readies his blade as we float toward each other, but Zarek’s arm gives me extra range. Zarek’s hand is clutching tight to the blade, and I swing the whole arm right at Tager.

“Shit!” he yells, realizing there’s no way for him to stop in mid-flight.

The blade jams through his skull, killing him instantly, and his death means I’m alone. And that my brother is safe.

“Thirty seconds until engine start,” the intercom says. “Final warning!”

I kick off Tager’s body, which propels me back toward the pod. I miss it by a Marauder’s length or so, and I have to use my arms to pull myself along the rail toward the pod. I quickly get in and seated, slam the door shut, and hit the release button.

The arm pulls my pod down toward the bay, blasts me out into the cold void of space, and just moments later, the artificial sun of the anti-matter drives flares in the distance.

The pod’s display flashes red with warnings, and I start to feed all of the biofuel that Aegus has packed for me into the shield generator.

“Shields active!” the computer says in a voice that is much too calm for the situation.

“Shit!” I shout. The shield is burning up way more biofuel than I thought. If I use up too much too soon, I won’t have enough reaction mass left to slow down—I could slingshot right through the Sol system.

I watch as the engines from the fleet get smaller and smaller, and finally I shout, “Kill the shields!”

“50% chance of survival, are you sure, Cygnus?”

“Yes, I’m fucking sure,” I say. “Now follow my brother.”

The pod is a small sphere, and I already feel cramped. I watch the engines shrink as my pod continues on at 80% of lightspeed, while the fleet looms behind me like a hundred suns.

“Cygnus, I recommend you hibernate now.”

“Wait,” I say. “I want to see it.”

I watch the hundreds of mini suns fade into the distance. It’s only after several hours, when they are just small dots, that I allow my inner bear to take over. I drift to sleep, into a years-long hibernation.

A
s soon as
the alien starts breathing, the pod immediately takes on a solid form again, hiding the purple creature’s muscled body from me.

“Shit.”

All at once a hatch pops open on the side of the pod, and thick purple liquid starts spilling out. We’re in zero-g again, so the liquid just floats around in a translucent, oblong blob.

I pull myself along the pod and cautiously look into the hatch through the open door.

The alien is curled into a fetal position, and the pod’s computer is talking in a language I can’t understand.

His purple eyelids open, and he straightens his body so he’s sitting up to face me. His green eyes bore into me.

I try to force myself to look in his eyes, but I blush and look downward. It’s then I realize I’m just staring at his big teal cock, so I quickly redirect my line of vision back up again.

“Sorry!” I say, my cheeks blushing bright red.

“Human female,” the alien says, in a strange accent.

“How can you speak English?” I ask.

“I order you to take me to the red planet. The fourth from your star,” he says.

“Wow,” I say. “You just woke up and you’re already bossing me around?”

“I am Cygnus, warrior of the Marauder fleet,” he says, “Now that introductions are over, I order you to take me to the red planet.”

There’s a loud slam, and the ship shakes.

Cygnus kicks off the wall of the pod and flies out of the pod. His muscles are even more impressive in action. He’s still gloriously naked, and he doesn’t seem the least bit shy about it.

He floats through the
Zephyr’s
cargo bay, then catches the airlock’s handle to stop himself. He looks through the window of the airlock. We’re already inside the pirate’s containment bay, though they haven’t sealed us in yet.

“What’s this?” he asks, pointing out the window and into the inside of the pirate ship which has now swallowed us.

“I can’t take you to Mars,” I say. “We’re being captured by pirates who are very likely going to kill me. You’ll have to negotiate with them. And how exactly are introductions
over
? Did I tell you my name?”

He looks up at me and his ears twitch. “You are a childless human female. My race is coming here to interbreed with you and assimilate your offspring into our fleet. You’ll be assigned a true name once you bear one of our children. I don’t need—”

“Excuse me?” I say, kick myself off the side of the pod and fly toward him at the speed of a bullet.

I crash into the wall beside him, and then orient myself so it feels like we’re standing face to face.

“I’m Aura,” I say. “I don’t need to bear a child to have a name.”

His eyes look me up and down, and his ears pull back. He tilts his head a little, and then cracks a tiny hint of a smile. It looks almost like…a smirk?

I blush, and he tilts his head even more. “What’s wrong with your skin?”

“Nothing,” I mutter. “If you’re not going to call me by my name, at least shake my hand. If we’re going to die together, I don’t want to die with a stranger.”

I hold my hand out for him to shake. He takes hold of it, brings it to his face, and sniffs. I feel a tingle of excitement as his warm hand grasps me, but I pull back in fear.

His eyes widen, and I see movement out of the corner of my eye. I look down to see his big teal cock twitching and expanding.

“Jesus!” I shout, and swear my face must be on fire by this point.

“I’m excited by your scent,” he says. “You’re not even in heat...yet you’re wet?”

How the hell does he know I’m...shit! I am wet. He’s naked and towering in front of me, and his muscles are glistening from the liquid he was floating in. His own scent is masculine and overpowering, and now his big teal cock is growing longer and wider!

“Interesting,” he says,. “Perhaps I’ll keep you.”

“Keep me?” I shout.

“They’re hacking into the airlock,” Seth says. “Their computer is stronger than me. I can’t hold them off for long.”

“Are these good fighters?” Cygnus asks me.

“They’re pirates,” I respond. “They usually know how to fight. I have a gun down in my sleeping quarters. Do you know how to use a gun? Or should I keep it?”

He laughs. “A female with a gun? I’m one of the greatest warriors in our fleet, and I am master of any weapon.”

“Okay,” I say. “Follow me, and I’ll give you the gun.”

He jumps off the wall and disappears back into his pod.

“What are you doing?” I shout after him.

A few moments pass before he floats back out of the pod, holding a blood-soaked blade and a small black box.

“My equipment,” he says.

I look down at the equipment he’s holding in his hands, and then I look further down, at his….
equipment
. He’s still semi-hard, and I catch myself licking my lips.

“Would you like to hold it?” Cygnus asks.

My face burns hotter than the sun, and my eyes bulge.

“I...I….”

He holds out the box, and I let out a nervous giggle.

“Oh,” I say. “Sure.”

I take the box from him, and then he leaps off the wall and catches the ladder. “I will find the gun.”

He disappears up the ladder.

Just before I jump off the wall to follow Cygnus, gravity comes back, but in the wrong direction. Now that the
Zephyr
has been secured within the cargo bay of the pirates’ ship, they’re accelerating with us trapped inside. They seem to have mounted my ship within their cargo bay so that it’s positioned sideways, so that the side walls of our ship have become the ceiling and floor.

I stand back up and walk through the greenhouse of our ship. All the hydroponic equipment is hanging on the sides of the walls now, and I have to walk across what is usually the ceiling to get through. The ladder is still cutting through the ship as usual, except now it resembles jungle gym bars. I have to jump up to grab hold of it, and then move my arms swinging from bar to bar just to get from the greenhouse to my quarters.

When I reach my sleeping quarters, I see all my drawers are pulled open and Cygnus is holding up a pair of my lace panties.

He holds the panties up to his face and then sniffs.

“We’ve watched your broadcasts for decades,” he says. “It’s how I learned your language. But I never would have thought you’d have such an intoxicating scent. Do all human females smell like this?”

“Put that away!” I snap. “You can’t just go through a woman’s underwear drawer!”

“I see,” he says. “I will put it away then.”

He snatches the box out of my hand, touches my panties to the box, and they are somehow sucked inside it.

“I didn’t mean….” I start to say, but then realize we’ll both probably be dead before he can sniff them again anyway.

I shove past him toward the drawer containing the gun. It’s shifted so that it’s on the side of the wall now, and I have to reach up on my tippy toes and stick my ass out to reach it.

As I’m halfway toward reaching the gun, I realize I’m pressed up against Cygnus’ body. My ass is pushing into his muscular thigh, and his body heat is radiating over me like a warm blanket.

I hurriedly grab the gun and then snap myself back up in an effort to move away from him. Now I’m standing just inches away from him, and he’s smiling at me, sniffing away. His eyes narrow as he sniffs, and that frustrating grin comes back.

I back up, somewhat reluctantly, and wave my hands in front of his face in frustration. “You can’t just...just...sniff people like that!”

“But I enjoy your scent,” he says in a tone that seems to question why I think his actions should be taken as anything but a compliment. His eyes turn serious. “Wait, I hear the hatch opening. Intruders. Should I go kill them?”

“Yes,” Seth says. “Please kill all of the intruders, Mr. Cygnus.”

“If I kill them all,” Cygnus says, “can you take me to the red planet?”

“Yes,” Seth and I both reply in unison.

“Good,” he says. “Then you will see what a Marauder warrior can truly do. Perhaps after you see, you’ll allow me to smell you more closely.”

I grit my teeth, but if smelling me will help him to fight better…

“Yes,” I say. “If you truly impress me with your fighting skills, you can smell me all you want.”

The smile on his face is the widest I’ve seen since first meeting him. I notice his teeth are perfectly white and quite human-looking, and his ears stand up perfectly straight when he smiles.

As he cocks the gun, I realize I haven’t told him how to operate the weapon. Even though there are a number of safety switches, he disengages all of them without hesitation. It causes me to wonder where he learned how to use a gun.

“You stay here, human female,” he says. “I will fight for you.”

He jumps through the hole in the wall into the greenhouse, and moments later I see him leap again into the cargo bay.

I stand alone in my sleeping quarters for a minute, fuming. I
told him
my name, why can’t he just use it?

I hear gunfire, and then a man screams. Seconds later, I see a gun hit the ladder in front of me. It bounces off and clatters to the ground. It’s not my gun. Cygnus must have killed a pirate breaking into the airlock, and it’s his gun that had fallen down the ladder.

It’s then I notice the bloodied blade laying on the ground. There could be dozens of pirates, but my gun only has twenty bullets.

“Cygnus!” I shout through the ship. “You forgot your knife! I’m bringing it to you. You might need backup!”

“Do not shame me, human female!”

“All right,” I mutter to myself. “That’s the last straw. I’ll shame him, all right.”

I put the knife into my belt and race toward the cargo bay.