Nova: A Scifi Alien Romance (Rebel Lords) (20 page)

Finally withdrawing my tongue, I gave her clit a quick lick which made her giggle and her hands reached down to cover her sex. “Don’t!” she whined. “That tickled, it’s sensitive.” I gave a dopey grin as I sat up straight, only to be met with Amelia sitting up as well, giving me a big kiss on the lips; completely uncaring of her fluids still lingering there. She pulled away and looked at my face with a smile before happening to glance down. Lust and mischief sparked in her eyes before she looked back to me, her arms going around my neck. “Well now, we can’t have you pent up. I’ll have to take care of that,” Amelia spoke in a purr, giving me another kiss on the lips.

It was definite—I had it bad for this woman.

T
he following morning
, after breakfast, Dracon wanted to show me around the village. I was nervous about it, knowing the tribe didn’t like me very much. Well, they hated me—they were only tolerating me because I gave them information to help them win a fight. But he was insistent, and really the safest place I could be was by his side. It just felt weird to be taking a tour of the village that I was being held captive in. Or was I even being held captive anymore? I didn’t know. I honestly probably shouldn’t have been wondering what was and wasn’t weird, considering I was sleeping with the man holding me captive.

We headed out of the hut, and I instantly felt so out of place. I was only a little over five foot, with rather thin and very pale legs and arms, with crazy curly dark brown hair; and the brown poncho-thing with arm holes swallowed me whole, hanging off my shoulders and flowing down to about mid-thigh. He had chuckled when I put it on, saying it was just a shirt on him. And there I was, short, pale, big haired, with nothing on but a poncho-dress and my black boots from the Union Jack—and everyone around me was six foot or taller, with vibrant red skin, with well-fitting clothes. Yeah, I didn’t fit in, to say the least. I tried to act as though it didn’t bother me, not wanting it to be so apparent on my face; though it was pretty certain that the embarrassed blush covering my cheeks gave it away. Dracon held my wrist in order to not give away to the others what was actually going on; though his fingers would brush down against my palm, making butterflies swarm in my stomach. There was something about him that just pulled me in, making me feel almost like a little school girl with a crush.

“Most of the huts you see are residential. We don’t have businesses or anything of the sort. We have a communal living style. Some raise crops and harvest them, others hunt, others make clothes and other goods,” Dracon spoke as we walked along.

“What about your weapons and the cabinets and things?” I asked curiously, not entirely understanding how that worked.

“We have a group of men and women who work on those things. Some of them harvest the materials while the others make what needs to be made.”

“So… what exactly do they get the lasers from?”

Dracon paused for a moment, seeming to be thinking a bit hard on the answer. “There aren’t English words for what they are called… however, there are two rocks found here that when struck together make the light you see. Several generations ago, our ancestors found out a way to carefully fuse the two rocks together, making the continuous light—and they found another type of rock which counteracted the effects, so that is used to disable the weapon as well as turn our lights off and other things that have the lasers as you call them. They are plentiful here, but we use them sparingly to make sure the planet has time to make them over the generations so we never run out. As far as I know, our people have never even come close to running out.”

That was just remarkable to me, from a human perspective. Humans were so ridiculously wasteful as a species, not knowing the meaning of the word ‘sparingly’. “What about the blue stuff on the cabinets?” I asked, glad to finally be able to get answers to those questions. All of their technology had completely amazed me, but so foreign that I couldn’t even begin to comprehend how it worked.

“Same thing in a way. Our ancestors found this particular tree that had a core made of the hard material the doors are made of. At first, they used it for the construction of homes because of how remarkably durable it is. However, there’s a bug here that’s very tiny and flies in swarms. Two generations ago, the planet became infested with these little bugs—and when they landed on the structures made of the tree cores, it turned into a liquid-like substance. It collapsed many homes and some actually died from their huts giving way above them. The men captured some of the bugs and found that they secrete a waxy substance which makes them able to pass through the cores of the tree. The bugs bed into trees to get nutrients, and they believed they adapted that wax over thousands of years to be able to pass through the trees core with ease in order to get to new, uneaten spots of the tree. So, they caught the bugs and ground them into a wax, coating the wax onto various items to allow people to reach through the slats of the tree core,” Dracon spoke as though I was watching a holo-program on the construct of these items; he sounded so formal and informative.

“That’s crazy,” I exclaimed, trying to process what all he had just told me. “So do all of the technology you guys use come from renewable resources in nature?” I asked.

“Essentially, yes. Though the rocks for the lasers and the metal for the snake locks aren’t exactly quickly renewed… we just try our best to make the items which require those last as long as possible so we do not have to waste any of the metals or rocks. We want to live in peace with our planet. After all, it provides the necessities for us to live. In return, we do our best to take care of it and coexist with all of the plants and animals.”

“That’s so amazing and rather admirable. Humans tend to be so wasteful, leaving planets in ruins in their wake,” I frowned, shaking my head. “I suppose I’m a part of it, though, being an ice miner. But no one lives on the planets we get the ice from… if you can even call them planets. More like giant, mountainous ice balls,” I tried to joke lightly. But Dracon’s face was pinched a bit, upset over something.

“We know all too well how wasteful humans can be. Even if they hadn’t started a war over whatever it was six years ago, we honestly may have started a war with them by this point. They are mining away so much of our resources, putting our people at risk of extinction at the rate they are mining. The other Navani tribes are fed up with it as well,” Dracon sighed, stress coming over his features just at the thought of it.

“Wait, other Navani tribes? There are more than just your tribe?” I asked in awe. I hadn’t even known there was more than just this tribe. It seemed like Lyle and his men were primarily focused on Dracon’s tribe for whatever reason when it came to war.

Dracon nodded, “Several of them. We’ve tried to join forces to fight the humans, despite differences tribe to tribe. But, with those differences still there… we can’t seem to see eye to eye. And with the only fertile part of the planet being around the equator, the overall number of Navani people is rather small—and depleting by the day because of the war. With small numbers and the tribes not getting along, we are fighting a losing battle…”

My eyes quickly scanned around to see if any of the others were watching for the time being, and reached my other hand over and clasped it over his, giving it a light squeeze. I wanted to take his stresses away, or take his mind off of it, but the only ways I knew how to do that weren’t exactly appropriate for the public. His lilac eyes moved to mine, his fingers once again brushing down against my palm as a way to show his appreciation. I dropped my hand from over his, trying to think of anything to do or say. I thought back to our previous conversations and blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “You said one of your main jobs is to help with hunting, right?”

Sudden confusion overtook Dracon’s face; I’m assuming because of the randomness of the question. “Yes, why?” he asked rather hesitantly.

“I want to see what it is like, hunting. I’ve never been. And I have been eating the tribe’s food… All of them have jobs, so it isn’t fair for me to do nothing,” I tried to explain. I assumed he wouldn’t take ‘it was the first thing to come to mind and I didn’t like you being sad’ as a very serious answer.

A smirk came to his lips then, “Well, because you’re technically my prisoner, that’s why you don’t have to help. Your life is meant to be hanging in the balance, unsure if you will see tomorrow,” he teased heavily.

“I don’t think I any longer qualify as just a prisoner,” I whispered as I leaned into him a bit to let him hear before returning to a normal voice, giving a light chuckle. “And I’m being serious, I want to help. I want to show I don’t mean harm, and that I truly do want to help you guys in any way.”

Dracon looked over my face as if to analyze whether or not I was being serious. His eyes lingered on mine, “Well, if you say so, then alright. This way,” he began to walk into the jungle right behind the hut we were walking by.

I watched my footing, the jungle being completely covered in vegetation and giant roots. Once we were a little way into the jungle, I felt a hand brush against the bare skin of my bottom. My eyes immediately went to Dracon, who wore a smug smirk on his face. “Hey now, this is about hunting, not playing grab-ass,” I tutted him in a teasing way.

“Grabbing ass is a game? I want to play,” Dracon smirked, his hand giving a light squeeze then. My eyes looked around for anyone watching, which there wasn’t, before turning to him and reaching to grab his face. Pulling him down, I gave him a sweet, long kiss; his hand traveling up to the small of my back to pull me closer.

I pulled away from the kiss, looking up into his lilac eyes which were burning down into my eyes. “I’m serious, Dracon. I do want to show my appreciation for the tribe.”

He looked at me with a perplexed look, still holding me to him, before shrugging and dropping his hand from my back, “Alright then. Let’s go hunting.” As he began to lead the way deeper into the jungle, I stole another glance up to him to see a small, content smile on his face. What was he smiling about?

Ugh, I had forgotten briefly just how humid the jungle was there. It felt like we were walking through water, but being left sticky and sweaty. The jungle was absolutely beautiful. I had never seen it in the daylight until then. It had a splendid array of blues, purples, red, and greens; from dark and gray, to vibrant and neon. It was filled with flowers, trees, bushes, and plants I had never even seen before. My hand found his as we walked, lacing my fingers between his and holding his hand in a light grip. Dracon’s hand held mine firmly, using it to pull me closer to him as we traveled through the vegetation. Finally, after about twenty minutes of walking straight through the jungle, Dracon motioned for me to stop.

At first, I didn’t know why. I didn’t see any animals around other than bird-like creatures in the trees. Pulling his hand from mine, he held his index finger to his lips and with his other hand, reached behind him and pulled his ax from the sheath. Moving very slowly and carefully, he stood behind me and placed the metal staff in my hands. It hit me then just what I was about to do. Man, I really needed to start thinking things through and not just saying things or doing things on impulse. I had never killed anything but bugs in my life and had never once even thought about taking an animal's life. The cultural difference was tremendous. I never had to even think about the meat I ate once being an animal, whereas Dracon and his people looked their food in the eyes before killing, skinning, and cooking it. Anxiety ran through me a bit, worried that I would actually be able to do it. I wasn’t sure why I wanted to, but I wanted to impress Dracon and his people; I wanted to prove to them that I wasn’t like the other humans, and wanted to show appreciation of their culture. I didn’t know how other than to help where I could, and this seemed like a good way to do just that.

His large red hands guided my hands towards the top of the staff. Just below the holes where the lasers would come from, was a very small and unnoticeable switch. “Be careful with your hand positions, you don’t want to get burned by the lasers,” he whispered to me as he guided my thumb to pressed up on the switch before pushing my hands down the staff. With a flicker, two bows of blue light came from the top of the staff, the staff had a slight vibration while the lasers were on. “Can you hear it?” he whispered into my ear, his face lowered to where his lips brushed against the skin of my ear.

“Hear what?” I asked in a hushed tone. But just as the words left my mouth, just a few yards in the distance there was a rustling noise followed by a loud, whiny grunt. It sounded so strange, unlike any animal I had ever heard. “What is that?” I asked, looking up to him.

Dracon reached a hand down and turned my cheek back towards where the sound came from. “Don’t look at me, look at where the prey will be. It’s called a kawrun. It’s like a big…” he paused, trying to think of a word, “pig, I think you guys call it. But kawruns can be very aggressive when scared. That’s why you have to be quiet and surprise it. We’re going to sneak over there, and when we approach it, you swing the ax down and chop its neck.”

I swallowed the lump which had grown in my throat and gave a nod. So a wild, aggressive, alien pig was just a few yards away from me and my clumsy ass was meant to gracefully strike and kill it in one blow so that it didn’t attack me. That couldn’t end badly at all. Dracon nudged me from behind to walk forward. Taking a deep breath, I lightly began to trek forward. Each step was deliberate, placing my foot down as lightly as possible. The kawrun was behind a bush, sounding like it was eating something. I could feel my heart racing as we neared, my inner-self chanting ‘it’s going to be okay, it’s going to be okay, it’s going to be okay’. All I could think of though was how much I could mess up; I could just picture it. Freak out when I see it, close my eyes when I swung it and miss—possibly chopping one of mine of Dracon’s limbs off, and the kawrun charging at us and attacking us. I tried to soothe my woes by saying Dracon was there, and I was fairly certain he wouldn’t let anything like that happen; he would simply take over if it became that way.

We finally approached the bush and I peered over it with wide eyes. The kawrun was bigger than a pig, more like a boar. It had lavender skin with large black spots covering it. It had the body of a boar, but the face of… well, nothing like the livestock humans were used to. It had a protruding jaw with large pointed teeth, no nose but just large nostrils just above its upper lip, and small beady eyes. It also had small, rounded horns clustering on the top of its head and trailing down the spine of its back. The beast wasn’t paying any attention to them, its horrid mouth dug into the tall grass as it tried to eat at something. I stood there in marvel for a long few moments before I felt Dracon’s hand squeezing my hip—I suppose that was his signal to hurry up and strike.