Soren Read online

  This mission has been lonely, but that loneliness is my punishment. I was not always alone. I did not always yearn for it. I did not always seek to punish myself this way. After I lost her…

  I hear a shriek from Nadia's home and I raced back through the woods brushing against sharp bramble. I leap up into the tree and hear her scream again. She grabs onto the bars across her window and shrieks. It's getting dark and her frustration explodes. Shaking the bars will not free her and I cannot stand to see her pain.

  I hurry back to my ship and grab a translation pen and some thick papyrus paper. The pen will translate my language to hers. I know I cannot reveal myself to her and I am not supposed to rescue her but perhaps I can leave her a message after she sleeps, a message to tell her she is not alone even if she doesn't exactly know it.

  I scribble:

  Nadia, no matter what happens, I will protect you. I will not allow the brute to harm you anymore. If you want a way out, come to the woods in three nights. Stand against the large pine. I will help you.

  She will know the pine.

  I think better than to sign my name and then I think better than to send the message at all. I have no business doing this; I have no business disobeying orders. I have no business skulking around when every instant in my body tells me to draw my dagger against this fleshy human's throat and stop him from assaulting her. At least for now, Nadia can sleep in relative peace. A peaceful night to her is one where he is not there to hear her cry.

  But her house is quiet and I can no longer hear her sobs from the tree I scale the window and between the crack in her window I slip my note. Damn distance. I cannot allow Nadia to suffer any more than I already have. I have the power to stop it and regardless of my edict from the general, I will do what I feel to be right. I will rescue her.

  I sleep little that night. Visions from my past scurry across my subconscious and engulf my peaceful sleep in waves of worry. Nightmares drag me into a gulf of despair and I wake to the neighbor’s orange cat rubbing its tail against my cheek and then wrapping said tail around my horns. I grumble and rise and the cat gives out a little noise. I stroke between its ears and talk to it for a moment. I am alone too long. I hurry to my spot in the pine tree and the cat loses interest. The damned thing is growing on me, and I miss its company already.

  I watch as Nadia opens the note, and she tightens the sweater around her shoulders. I cannot tell if she's pleased or afraid. Or perhaps she thinks it is the brute’s trick. She slips the letter under her mattress and she disappears into the house. The brute returns in the evening, and his mood is pleasant. He does not yell at Nadia, and for a moment I wonder if I imagined his brutality. He is gentle and kind and I see the persona he must have used to lure her here — into the countryside alone.

  They make love and the sound irks me so I retire early to my ship. I have no business with this anger. It does not suit me. It does not suit my station or my mission. But it alerts me to an uncomfortable truth. I have fallen for her. Deeply.

  4

  Survival

  Nadia’s shrill scream shatters the peaceful night. Within one rotation of this planet, the brute has lost his capacity for tenderness. I hear his slap across her face from the tree and then the door to their house open. Rage courses through me. I must act.

  I hear Nadia's haggard breathing through heavy sobs and her feet racing toward the dark forest behind their home. I stand in the pine tree, hanging onto one of the top branches, out of sight but capable of seeing all.

  The brute exits the house with a larger primitive weapon hoisted over his shoulder. He calls her name.

  “Nadia! You stupid whore! Get back here, you bitch!”

  Nadia hides nearby, but he will find her soon. She's breathing too loudly and I can all but hear the adrenaline coursing through her veins. He comes closer to her spot and then he grabs her by the hand. She screams, surprised at his intrusion and he throws her to the ground, smashing her torso with the butt of his weapon. She yells.

  I leap from the tree and land with a large thud. My tail swishes back and forth. One swipe and the human will die at my hands. The general ordered me to avoid casualties, but I have to protect Nadia.

  The sound is enough to stop him from hitting her.

  “Did you fucking hear that?”

  “Stop. Please, Bradley, stop. Please...”

  He thinks she’s messing with her, and she whimpers, writhing on the ground in pain.

  She shudders and distracts him with her voice as her fingers scramble across the ground in search of a weapon. Nadia isn’t foolish, even if her circumstances imprison her.

  "Hear what?"

  I can still hear the fear in her voice. I pull my dagger out and step closer to him.

  “What the fuck is that?”

  They can only see my shadow in the darkness. A hulk of muscle with loose black hair and strong warrior’s horns and a tail, swishing behind me with irritation.

  Nadia springs to her feet and now they're both looking at me. Bradley cocks his gun and Nadia screams. She distracts him, and he fires, hitting a tree.

  “Nadia get back in the house,” he says.

  “No! I'm not going back in there with your crazy ass.”

  Her disobedience perturbed him more than my presence. He turns the gun on her, and screams for her to get back in the house again. I speak, but I know he cannot understand me. He can only hear the low growl of my voice, and he points the gun at me again. I can understand him.

  "Whoever or whatever you are back off."

  "It's some kid in a costume Bradley."

  "Some kid a costume that's 8 feet tall?"

  I was only 7 feet tall but I suppose with the horns I must have looked an impressive sight. He was not so brave now that he was matched with a Taurean soldier and not a female.

  "I said get back in the house."

  "No," Nadia says and runs. She runs straight toward me as if she isn't afraid, and Bradley cocks his gun and aims at her instead of me. She sidesteps me without looking, and my scales bristle. I clutch the handle of my dagger, ready to thrust it at the brute.

  I lunge between her and the bullet as he fires, and I feel it pierce my skin. He shoots again and I must retreat, hoping that I put enough distance between him and her and that tomorrow she can be free even if it means my death.

  As I run it back into the woods, I chuckle to myself. This is how it will end. This is how I will die. Protecting someone. It is what I wanted. My greatest wish. My death. I lean against my ship and examine the wounds. If I leave these primitive bullets beneath my flesh, my death will be slower. I pry them out and dress the wounds, although I do not intend to use my medical instruments to heal them. Let this be it. Let this be the end. Let Nadia be safe and let me die.

  I wake in the morning. My shoulder hurts, but I am not dead. The brute cannot shoot well. The orange cat meows, and I rub its ears with my good hand. I grunt to my feet. Blood cakes around the bullets on the ground, and the stupid cat licks at the congealed fluid.

  “Furry beast, how did you convince the Terrans to allow you in their homes?”

  MeOW!

  “Do you think Nadia is safe?”

  The cat purrs. A rather useless companion. I lift it onto my shoulders, and it digs its nails into my ridges for support. This would hurt a mammal, but not me. The orange cat wraps its tail around my horns.

  “I would steal you away to my planet, if I could,” I mumble as I tear open field rations.

  I am too tired to hunt. I hear footsteps on the edge of the forest. I do not want Nadia to be close. This brute will kill her.

  “Hello?!”

  I hear her calling into the forest, around a quarter mile away. I lift the cat off my shoulders and it runs off. Shit. She’s getting closer.

  “Hello? Is anyone out there?”

  I conceal my ship and hide inside it, staring out the viewscreen. Nadia never gets close enough to see me and then she leaves the forest.

  What is s
he doing here? Why is she still so close to that house where the brute nearly killed her? Maybe I haven’t died yet because she is not yet safe. I want to follow her, but my computer system chimes. Field reports. If the general doesn’t hear from me, I’ll be in trouble. Paperwork first, then I can chase her down.

  It takes an hour to file my paperwork and I leave the ship. The orange cat is nowhere close and I return to the pine tree, hoisting myself up the sides to observe her. The brute’s metal vehicle isn’t there and Nadia sits outside, her back pressed to the siding of the house. She stares into the forest wistfully. What does she dream of?

  I hang from my top branch and allow my feet to hit the ground with a thud, appearing to her for the first time.

  5

  Nadia Meets Me

  No fear flickers across her eyes. She rises from the bench cautiously and tightens the scarf around her head. Seeing her so close and nearly smelling her forces me to act. I reach for the vial in my pocket and sniff it instinctively.

  “What are you?”

  I reached for a tiny gold pin in my pocket and stretch my hand out to her.

  "You cannot understand me unless you take this."

  I thrust my hand out further. She does not want to get close to me. I understand why, considering how I must look to her. My injured shoulder doesn’t help.

  I nodded to show her good faith and stretch my hand out again.

  She runs and snatches it from my hand and then runs back, sitting on the bench staring at me as if taking her eyes off me will cause me to disappear.

  Holding the pen is enough so I can communicate with her.

  "You can put it in your clothes are in your hair. The pin translates Taurean for you. Your culture has no translators as yet."

  "What are you?" She is everything I have just said and obviously she understands it, but she's clarifying that she will not listen to me until I answer her questions.

  I cannot blame her.

  “We should not talk like this. I am not supposed to allow aliens to witness me unless they take me captive.”

  “I will not move until you tell me what you are.”

  “Commander Soren of Tau.”

  She gasps.

  "Either you aren't from Earth, or I'm hallucinating."

  "I am not from the earth. Does that scare you?"

  She shakes her head.

  "There are more horrifying things than aliens."

  The quiver in her lip as she eyes my horns tell me she isn't being entirely honest.

  “I will not hurt you.”

  Realization dawns on her.

  “You left me the note. You have been watching me. Did you come to abduct me?”

  "No." I wince as I shift my stance and accidentally move the arm where the brute shot me

  "You’re shot," she gasps.

  “You were there.”

  She purses her lips and swallows.

  “He’s gone. I wanted to run away, but yesterday I came back, and I kicked him out. I don't think he will come back.”

  She cannot possibly know for certain but I do not think scaring her would be it helpful so I say nothing.

  “You need medical treatment.”

  "I do not. I do not wish for medical treatment."

  She folds her arms and pops her hip, “What happens if your wound becomes infected?”

  "The same thing that happens to everyone else I presume."

  "But your wounds are treatable! Are the bullets still in there?"

  "No."

  I am eager to get out of plain sight. I take a step back toward the forest.

  "Are you leaving?"

  I see now that I have made a mistake. I have exposed myself to her and she is human and even if I haven’t terrified her yet, what I have done has compromised the entire mission. I am supposed to be observing her, not introducing myself and when word eventually gets back which it will, I will lose my status and I will not have even had the decency to die.

  "I must," I say hoarsely.

  She folded her arms.

  “I have just found out that aliens are real and not some kind of conspiracy I'm not letting you out of my sight. I don’t know what to do… Don’t you run off!”

  "You should forget that you ever saw me."

  "So you aren't here to abduct me?"

  "No. Only to watch."

  “Don’t leave.”

  "I must."

  "Are you a liar then?"

  I detect a smirk but do not understand the humor behind her accusation.

  "A liar?"

  "You said you would protect me. He could come back, you know. So why don't we protect each other. You saved my life, now it's time for me to save yours."

  "You owe me no debt."

  A smile tugs at the corners of Nadia's mouth.

  “I know. But you will come with me, or I will scream.”

  I want to believe that she would not dare, but I know that she would. I follow her down the cobblestone path where I watched her for months, where she planted her small garden and I enter the house she shares with the brute.

  “How long have you watched me?”

  My muscles tense and my shoulders throb.

  “A while.”

  I watch her small, curvy hips as she walks ahead of me. She may be curvy by human standards, but her frame is slight compared to my own. I am lucky she covers her body like this. A prickle of arousal runs down to my crotch and I rake my hands through long black hair.

  My feelings for her only strengthen as I follow her into the house via the back door. I presumed my appearance would disgust her when she saw me, but now the look in her eye is anything but disgust.

  Gratitude, perhaps?

  She closes the door, and I find her home to be spacious. On Tau, we live underground and it is not typical for anyone to have ceiling so high.

  "My father left me this house. But he also forced me to marry Bradley."

  She removes the fabric around her head, and I am surprised.

  “Bradley liked me to wear the scarf, to mock me. I stopped wearing it long ago.”

  I listen carefully, as if I understand her. I clutch the vial in my pocket again. I will need to suppress my urges if I can smell her hair.

  I sniff the vial, and my pupils widen.

  “Are you not afraid of me?”

  “No. You need help. Sit.”

  I sit on the edge of her tub.

  “He pierced the leather right through.”

  She examines the wound and her closeness irks me. I have failed my mission and I’m too close to her to control myself for long. The vapors that control my raging hormones won’t last forever. Even my vials are in limited supply.

  I grunt and nod

  “You gotta take it off.”

  “No!”

  “Why not?”

  I can barely control myself around her. Taking my urges will be impossible if she touches my bare skin with her gentle hand.

  “I can do it myself with your medical materials.”

  I forget for a moment that I wish to bleed out and die.

  “I don’t have that much. I go through iodine and band-aids like crazy.”

  I tousle my hair out of my face and search hers for signs of hurt.

  “He hurt you.”

  “Yes, he did. He and my father determined to keep me cooped up here. They had it all worked out. They kidnapped me after college and brought me here.”

  “Your father did not kill him for dishonoring you?”

  Nadia scoffed.

  “The great Firuz el-Bilal didn’t give a shit. He knew Bradley could control me, could force me to be his perfect little girlfriend. He nearly killed me when I dyed my hair blue.”

  “It’s beautiful.”

  She stares at me for too long without speaking.

  “Beautiful? The way you look I thought you would prefer a girl with a tail.”

  “Females of your species arouse me enough without one.”

  Her cheeks flush.


  “I beg your pardon for my bluntness.”

  “I’ll get the first aid kit.”

  6

  Nadia Nurses Me

  She returns to find my leather armor, and tunic removed. I sit on the tub with my bare chest exposed, tail hanging in the tub and flicking the tap back and forth, allowing water to drip onto my scales.

  “Holy fuck,” she gasps when she enters the bathroom.

  “Am I immodest by human standards?”

  “N-no. It’s not that. I-I’m sorry.”

  “Do not stutter. Speak bluntly.”

  “I’ve seen nothing like you before. That’s all.”

  “Aliens are on Earth.”

  “I’ve heard rumors, but I had no reason to believe them to be true.”

  “Do you prefer to cover your hair?” I ask her.

  A part of me still believes in the research, even if I’ve broken every rule the general and our allies set. Her eyes never leave my chest.

  “To tell you the truth, yes. I lost taste for it because of Bradley. It used to feel comfortable, more like me, but he’s made me hate that part of my culture.”

  “Human culture?”

  “Muslim. I used to be Muslim.”

  “I do not know the Muslim culture.”

  Nadia laughs.

  “I’m sure you don’t. I’m half-white, anyway.”

  “You are olive,” I say, thoroughly confused by her language even if the words make some sense.

  “You have more work to do with studying humans.”

  “Unfortunately, I do not.”

  I search through her primitive kit as she keeps her back against the wall at a polite distance away from me.

  “Why not?”

  “I disobeyed orders. When the general finds out, he’ll call me home.”

  “How far away is home?”

  “I don’t think you would understand it.”

  I take a stinky orange fluid, similar to Itzmar and dab it on the cuts. From the stinging, the chemical compound must be similar. I could have returned to my ship for my med kit, but I don’t want to leave her. From the moment I saw her in this house, I knew I would never leave her. I knew I would lose myself and allow my mission to succumb to my obsession.