Citun’s Storm (3 page)

“Uhhh, Citun?” she bellowed. “You might want to run
faster
.”

Citun glanced back and watched a rapid fire of red and blue bursts of laser beams eat up the ground coming too close for comfort. Small explosions erupted and Storm cried out, yelling when particles hit her flesh. He’d discreetly noticed earlier that her garments were minimal. Nice for him to look at, all her sweet exposed tanned curves, but not so nice when flesh was being used as target practice. Citun pulled her from his shoulder and wrapped her in his arms. His long hair snugly conformed to her lush body, leaving his hands free. The action was meant to cradle a son in the harshness of his northern territory. Pressed against him, she was cocooned in safety. For the moment.

A massive blast to his left and huge stone pieces from pillars began to topple. A shuttle all ablaze smashed straight down onto a column crushing it. A fast glance and he saw it was a drone vessel, he should have known the Gorgano were too chicken to actually board one to fight. Crashing, splitting, the massive mounds made the earth shake. The stones were images, strange alien faces, huge symbols from ten to forty feet in height. Ancient relics destroyed in a war rant for a lone Zargonnii and a small human female.
Pricks.
At some time intelligent life lived here; now the artifacts were obliterated.

“Storm, if there are other females on this planet you can connect with, now would be a good time before we get our asses handed to us.”

“Huh?” She was prying her fingers through his hair to create a place to peek.

Citun lunged up as another blast almost sent him spinning. He jumped from one huge boulder, flipped upside down, arms and legs stretched as he spun and landed with a thump, racing again.

“Connect. Mentally. Can you link with other humans here?”

Another blast, both of his feet connected with hard stone as he ran as vertically up the rock as possible, then sideways until the blasts on the ground ceased.

“That’s a problem because the other females here aren’t actually human.” She was talking from the small space she created; only her pursed lips were visible.

Citun was hard-pressed not to stop dead. “You aren’t human?”

“I didn’t say that.”

He was once again on the ground. A massive explosion stopped Citun, and the earth beneath them crumbled. They were falling.
Shit.
Citun curled his arms around Storm and bent his knees slightly to brace for impact. The ground was a long time in coming, when his feet finally connected to the ground it was a shock. Citun had no choice except to roll, cradling Storm to protect her as best as he could.

When their tumbling ceased, Citun was smashed against a hard surface, his breath expelled in a whoosh. His hair used for protecting a small male child conformed to protect Citun as well. Half the amount cocooning Storm wasn’t enough to keep her in place. Storm was sprawled belly down over top of him. She groaned as she straddled him and punched him in the chest.

“I knew you’d be trouble.” She pulled her lips back in a snarl.

“
You
killed the Gorgano,” he drawled.

“I also saved you.”

“I just saved you.”

“Fine. We’re even. Good-bye.”

Storm struggled to remove her leg from his side, but half her foot was trapped under his hip. She tugged, her hands splayed on his bare oval belly. Citun didn’t move. He wasn’t hurting her, but she wasn’t going anywhere unless he allowed it.

“Move, fat ass,” she finally yelled.

She was speaking English, but Citun had been around enough human females to understand the derogatory tone and the three simple words. Citun was beginning to learn a number of different languages, but spoke only a few words in each different language. There was something about Zargonnii warrior’s throats, or so the healer Finn surmised, keeping the hardened warriors from saying too much in different tongues. The growls and grunts of his own speech was so much simpler.

“Why do humans say ‘good’ bye, when leaving can be sad?” Citun asked in his language.

“Yeah, I’ll cry all night,” she grumbled.

“I won’t hurt you,” Citun said. He kept his tone soft seeing her mounting distress.

“Says you and ah, oh, let’s see,” she said and lifted a hand to begin counting on her fingers. “A Tonan, an assassin from hell claiming to be from a planet called Brax, a snake-man or man-snake. And last but not least a Cono. You make an even five.” She made a fist. “A blasted handful,” she yelled.

Citun took her fist and gently pried her fingers loose. “Tonans can be evil, but some are looking for mates. I heard the Braxians have their hands full with a few wayward assassins, all deadly. Since you are alive, I’m guessing you killed the assassin or he actually let you live.” She colored and he guessed the latter.

“He was hideous,” she whispered.

“Most are. The snake-man might have been from a different dimension. I admit I’ve never heard of a Cono before.”

Citun shifted to release her, and she crawled off him to sit at his side. Her long dark hair covered her features until she raised her face and he was impaled by beautiful blue eyes. Delicate cheek bones, white teeth, rounded globes for breasts peeked from under a tiny leather tanned shirt having come askew, Citun was certain he found his mate. When she noticed where his gaze settled, she stuffed the beauties back into her shirt, hiding half of them from view.

“Eyes forward. The girls don’t speak; if they did, I know what they’d say.” She sounded pissed. “The universe sucks goobers,” she then muttered under her breath.

Citun chuckled. She seemed to lack the expletives of many Earth females. And to a male of his species breasts spoke volumes considering Zargonnii females only had them when they nursed. To Citun, human female breasts were gifts. Something to be celebrated, honored and treasured, not ogled. They were part of a woman’s beauty, serving a purpose, a reminder of life. He cupped her chin and smiled at her.

“Are the Cono goobers?”

“They are creatures who live on this planet. Only the most powerful males mate with the females of their kind. The horny young ones will copulate with anything.”

“Did you land with other humans?”

“Yes, originally.” Her tone was subdued and sad. “We were told we were headed to Ulsy, but the second we landed we knew we were duped. The shuttle pilot took off and abandoned us; he was a Tonan. When we protested right before he left, he changed into a different creature and shocked the hell out of us. We had been traveling with a monster all that time and never knew. The alien had claws and talons. Even though we tried to systematically attack, we failed and the Tonan killed a man in front of us to show us how easy it would be to do away with us. Their power is nothing short of phenomenal.

“We were to be cultivated. The Tonans expected us to be good little humans and copulate our brains out so we could hand over our daughters in the future. Happen, not gonna. There were two men left and eight women. The men were killed the first month by the male Cono, who are very territorial. There was no defending the men; they were slaughtered. The Cono spared the women in the beginning. Considered no threat, maybe even a novelty because of our size, we were left alone for a long time, surviving together, making a life. It wasn’t perfect, but we managed, finding food and clothes, making fire. Every once in a while, a shuttle would appear; some of the human females were taken and different females would be dropped off, alien females. We accepted each other and our differences. Then other aliens began landing and the Cono grew angry. Cono began getting hurt, their land violated. The aliens were cruel, most male, I’m not sure what the heck sex a Gorgano is, and regardless, those aliens didn’t care what they killed while trying to get what they wanted. Us, dead or alive.

“Not brilliant beings, the Cono were smart enough to know humans and females were the cause of their problems. You see, the Tonan cultivated not only human females, but alien females they thought Castians would mate with. Maybe the Cono thought since other males wanted females of other species dead we were worthless. Who knows? The damage was done. The Cono waged war on females, all alien females, but you could see their hearts weren’t in it. They only wanted to protect their own females and young. They killed other females as mercifully as possible. The Cono are incredibly strong. But the Gorgano came, too late for many but not me, they gave me an edge when I confronted one and killed it. I was so angry after losing so much and so many friends. Some females, human and others, were stolen by aliens. I’m the only human on this planet who has survived as far as I know, but not the only female.”

“Do you communicate with other females?”

“We found when we grouped together there was death in numbers, not safety. If a single female had her period, um, a time of month we bleed, it could mean all our deaths if we were together. The Cono hunt a female in heat relentlessly. Females on the rag don’t sleep for days at a time, always on the run. We separated. I see others from time to time. If it’s safe to be together we talk for a few hours or days. Ultimately, we are alone.”

“The Cono can’t be bright if they didn’t protect females, females of any kind, and take them as their own.”

“There’s no way. They’re built too different.”

“Zargonnii and humans are entirely compatible.”

For a second, her gaze drifted to his cock and she shifted after turning beet red. Citun decided to change the subject. There would be lots of time to discuss mating. Now wasn’t the right place or the right time. He needed to get her to safety, which meant joining with his landing party. Then he realized what she said. If the Cono fought males, his warriors might be in a bit of a bind. As well, the Gorgano might still be overhead.

Citun rose to his feet. “Do you know where we are? Or where this cavern leads? It’s time we got moving.”

Storm jumped up. “I know you say you’re a leader, but don’t take the leader tone with me. I can take care of myself.”

Citun refrained from chuckling at her indignant look. “Obviously. I can’t fight the Gorgano. Zargonnii battle with skill and strength. You know your way around here. I need to get to my ship. My warriors are roaming this planet. Exposed to both the Gorgano, Tonan, and now Cono as well. I was hoping for your help.”

“Oh.”

“It’s been a long time since you spoke civilly to a male. I mean in a conversation.”

“The last was a Cono. He said he wouldn’t hurt me, but we both knew he would kill me. He only meant he wouldn’t pull me apart. They do that, ya know, with males who they think are a danger.”

“Charming.”

Storm sized him up. “You might stand a physical chance against one. They fight alone. They keep as many females as possible, normally five per male. It seems aliens who think they’re stronger deserve many mates.”

Citun gave her a direct gaze. “My kind and our females don’t mate for life. We meet once in the jungle every two years hoping we will be given the coveted offspring. Ours is a solitary life of procreation with our females. We need to keep our ways. Females keep females; males keep males. Warriors band together, our females band together, yet we manage to look out for one another. Female Zargonnii are very protective of their sons at any age, but they care from a distance.” Citun decided to leave it at that. If she thought he was checking her out as mate material, she would be skittish.

Storm turned in a tight circle. “You see the patterns of color on the cavern walls?”

Citun hadn’t noticed the subtlety before; he did now. There were all kinds of colors, all an inch wide, each running along the sides in different directions, some in the same direction. He thought the colors different rocks. He gave her a quick nod of his head.

“The black will take you to grass, in fact if you feel the black line the texture is grass. The blue will take you to a large body of water, the green smaller ponds. If you feel them they are wet, but don’t drip, which is kinda cool. Each line will take you to a place. The silver is forested areas.”

Citun raised his hand but Storm grabbed him then quickly let go. He leaned in for a closer look, noticing the red line moved in a rolling lazy fashion. It bubbled and spit but remained contained in the lines. There was a unique smell to the flow.

“Does the red go somewhere unsafe?” he asked.

“The red burns, it leads to an active volcano.”

“Thank you.” Citun doubted he would have been injured; he had encountered the substance she spoke of. His skin was almost impossible to penetrate, but he was pleased she reacted to keep him safe. He felt it time to explain her situation. “Storm, this planet isn’t safe. The Gorgano will return again and again to find you and kill you. The Cono might one day get lucky. My planet is a safe place for you to go, within reason. We have our own problems, but there are humans who live there and are happy. I came looking to save humans. Imagine my surprise when one saves me, and then strives to keep me safe. You would be welcome on my planet. No more running and hiding, you would be embraced into a community.”

She frowned. “You said males and females live apart. What community would embrace me?”

“My warriors. None would hurt you. Human females are somewhat new to my planet, but my warriors are handling the interchange well enough. The females of my kind are pleased some of the warriors have found human mates.”

“I don’t know.” Her gaze shifted, he winced wondering if the word mate was a good idea. Citun could smell her fear.

“You don’t need to decide right now. Help me find my warriors. Perhaps we’ll have some time to get to know one another. If you decide to board my vessel and don’t want to come with the Zargonnii, there are other planets that are safe.”

“There is no safety.”

“I promise you there is.”

“I don’t want to live in a jungle and have sex every two years.”

Citun chuckled. “We have a place human females
and
males reside.”

It was true except the place was empty; all human females on his planet were mated to Zargonnii males. The human males who stayed lived with Zargonnii males of their own free will to help raise their children.