A Wider Sky Ch. 10

Chapter 10

Moist.

Chilly.

Dirty.

Sour.

Dank.

Pebbles that were spine tingling.

Soft.

Mint.

Silky, tickling my chin and teasing my ears.

Warm.

Moist, wet upon my lips.

He was there, his emerald eyes hidden under those perfectly framed blue-black eyelashes. His loose curls draped my ears with warmth, above me was the canopy of the forest, playing peekaboo with the blue sky.

But what brought me to, was Gaelen's lips pressed against mine, kissing me. I could pretend I was still passed out. He wouldn't know the difference, his eyes were sweetly closed as if in the midst of an earnest wish. A wish that I was also an alien and that his soul would write my name on itself sealing us together. But that was my wish and it wouldn't happen. I was human, a smudge upon the new earth, the post-Eclipse earth. I was more than a defect. I was dreaming and I didn't want it to stop.

I pressed my lips forward to meet his kiss, he responded snaking his arm under my body pulling it closer to his own. My heart sighed, that was the warmth is awoken to, shielding it from the chilly breeze that pin-pricked goosebumps on my arms. Our mouths tango danced and tangled, tongues and lips drawing into each other, teasing and prompting returns of delirious lust.

"My mother told me the fairytale about Sleeping Beauty being awoken by a kiss from a Prince," I whispered and he growled with passion kissing me with more earnest.

"No more human archaeology, Kiowa, just be in the moment." He commanded in his princely way. The idea that he was a prince was hard to get used to.

My hands snuck behind his back and journeyed up his back, feeling his flesh, it felt human, everything about him was human yet inside he wielded the power that was foreign to this universe. Inside me, I also had a power created to adapt to this new invaded universe.

My mind felt like a starburst, from that thought more insights came to me. I had to stop this foray as much as I didn't want to but I couldn't lose this train of thought. I gently pushed Gaelen off of me.

"Are you okay now? Perhaps you should faint again and we can continue where you let your big brain stop us, or is it your innocence that bades you to freeze up?" He said it teasingly but it had too much hint of male dominated annoyance. I couldn't let it stop these ideas, thoughts moments of true clarity.

"Gaelen, what if..." I was careful how I phrased my next words. "You know how nature fights against a predator? It creates a solution. It adapts. I thought that-," I had to make this sound alien. "I was thinking that the defects could be caused by this planet's ecosystem." I really meant humans being able to have powers, but I hadn't meet anyone with my powers, so I quite possibly could be the only one. I only could assumed I wasnt the only baby in natal during Eclipse and turned out to be more than human. "What if your defects are really a part of the evolution of our kind on this planet." I really meant humans and I could see the gears behind his eyes churning, thinking that I meant becoming more human. "Not that you are becoming human. You are becoming a part of this planet. What better way to be a ruler. A ruler who is part of this planet."

He leaned back on his elbows, legs crossed at his ankles thinking. "I think we should stop thinking about the fate of Y'vroi and focus on us."

He then leaned back over me, cradling my neck. I went along with it just forgetting he was alien and a prince or that I was human.

His kisses were heavenly but then he pulled away.

"I want you on my arm at the Festivities."

He asked for me! I couldn't believe it. Someone asked for my hand like I was special, chosen, not the final pickings or unwanted leftovers. My heart somersaulted and if my soul could make a choice and write a name upon itself, it did at that moment.

"Gaelen," I nearly leap into his lap with excitement. He laughed and wrapped his strong arms around me. "I think I'm falling for you too."

I felt the brakes stop with me to a screeching halt. I admitted too much too soon. I ruined it all. I blanched from head to toe. He shook his head in his teasing amused way, raven locks floating in unison with his deep laughter.

"I'm falling for you too." He kissed my button nose.

I knew I was soaring now. I felt validated, I was a woman, I was interesting beyond platonic, I was appealing. I was able to be myself and admired as a woman for it.

"You know you have point about nature." He wrapped his arm around me and I felt immediately so warm I never wanted to leave his embrace. "I think we should practice nature...right now"

I squalled as he pulled my legs from under me bringing my hips to his, wrapping my legs about his waist. God he smelt wonderful. I wanted to never for get his smell, as he leaned into me, his lips teasing my chin, trailing hot to my neck. I could feel his hardness straining against his jeans that was dangerously close to the juncture of my thighs. He began to rock himself into me, his fingers teased the collar of my blouse, taking a peak at my flesh but not revealing anything but my nude clavicle and he relished in it. I would have never guessed Gaelen Borgias was a slow, deliberate lover relishing in the sight of my collarbone. This man savored passion.

"What if it is true? Defects are becoming more adaptable to this world. It means we are meant to stay here. To rule," I couldn't help but add. I was like a finicky horse, all nerves, yet mine were bundled in my tenacity to have to say something instead of relish passion..

"Yes, but even being on the top of the food chain. Nature has its way of controlling the top as well. Disease, weather, ailments or prey diseases and poisons," He said in between kisses lining my collar.

"Exactly, the humans can also do harm to our balanced ecosystem."

I winced, suddenly his passion seemed to have a cold front coming. Did I do that?

Gaelen rolled off of me and let his back fall hard into the moss of the tree. He dropped his arm over his eyes sighing with exasperation.

Damn, why couldn't I turn off my brain, just for 15 minutes..

"What are we to do? Get rid of the humans because they can poison us?" Gaelen said into his arm, not really wanting to engage in this discussion.

"What if they did?" I asked.

I had to know his position. His passion was so real, but I needed to know, what would happen when he finds out I'm human. I realized I couldn't be in the moment because my fear of my heart being broken because I'm human had to be known first. I was way over my head already. I did have strong feelings for him, but I have to guard my heart better or else find out the truth of his intentions.

"Yes, but some predator and prey or weaker species are better dwelling with each other. Consider the rhino and the birds on its back?"

"Consider the brown recluse spider?"

"The tomato and a basil plant live and grow better next to each other than in separate areas."

"Kiowa, the humans-" he sat up.

"Are humanoids just like we are. Our flesh, our hearts, our ..." I couldn't think of anything else without making an error. "We are so similar."

"So are the garden snake and the python. Kiowa, the human could end us with their destructive nature."

"I don't think so Gaelen. They don't have anything. No powers, they are weak. What should we do? Exterminate them, because we are afraid they are going to kill us based on speculation. We might kill them by sneezing on them. Yet probably not since we are so much like them. We lived together with them for decades before Eclipse. Did any of us die because a human gave us a cold? Do we continue to alienate ourselves from our new planet's hosts because we are afraid of our differences or the fact we aren't that much different from them after all."

"We are different from them. We are higher than them. We are the top of this planet's ecosystem and sometimes nature allows other species to take over."

"Only if improperly introduced!"

"What is this?!! Kiowa?! Why do you bring this up, my defect being a strength and then turn it into a weakness again. Don't toy with me Kiowa!" He stood up and was glaring down on me.

"I'm not toying with you." I also stood. I had to see him eye to eye. "I think that if we are going to talk about evolution and survival of the prey and predator then we have to acknowledge that we might have-"

"You sound like one of them?!" The pine needles around us bursted from the forest flow and created a circle wall around us. His temper flared with his powers and I was truly frightened for the first time since arriving in the realm. "Those!" He growled. "Is that why you know all this shit about human things, Kiowa. Are your parents part of the rebellious scourge?!" My eyes widened, rebels? What rebels! Humans? Aliens? What was he talking about? "Answer me now, Kiowa!"

"No. No." I shook my head trembling. His temper froze from hot to cold in an instant. The sharp pine needles fell like snow back to the ground. Fuck! Was he going to attack me with those tree daggers. "Stay away from me, Gaelen. Your temper..." Scares me I wanted to say. "Your behavior is not what I deserve."

"Kiowa." He tried to stop me from standing up. "I am sorry. I am so sorry. I didn't mean to anger you."

"That's twice, Gaelen. Go be moody around Sebol." His shoulders stiffened at my words to my satisfaction.

"Kiowa, please. I care a lot about you. It would kill me to know that you were an enemy of The Realm. I'm sorry I assumed you were against my family. You just spoke so... passionately for the humans."

"I was not!" I stopped him as soon as I could before he began to put what I said into clues of my human nature. "I was only stating the facts of evolution. Humans are an afterthought."

"Kiowa, please don't go. I hate humans. They always complicate everything in The Realm, even our special moment we were having together."

My skin blanched and I knew it as I felt the blood leave my body.

"Stay away from me!" I screamed as he again came towards me trying to placate me.

I pressed my hand against his chest to stop him but a blast of power flowed through me and tossed Gaelen into the air nearly smacking into the tree that was quite far away from us. Maybe 6 feet away but he flew into it hard and I was sure the wind was knocked out of him. So I ran.

I then turned and ran out of the woods, past the library, not stopping until I reached my dorm and slammed and double checked that it was locked.

His hatred humans was the only thing I could hear in my head.

My dorm room was lit up like a psychedelic Christmas tree, the wall vibrated with chimes and I immediately knew it was Them calling me. I forgot it was Friday, I lost track of the time.

I desperately slapped every surface on my desk and wall to answer the phone not really knowing how it worked.

"You are very lucky Ms. Walker we had already dispatched our raiding team to deal with you." A grey-purple haired woman appeared on my wall, she wore a tight tailored uniform with the emblem of Eclipse on her breast. Her face was tight matching the severity of her hair in a perfectly coifed bun. She starred fiercely at me with stormy grey eyes that had more expression than her rigid body.

My heart pumped so fast I could feel my blood pressure in my ears.

"I was- I was-"

"You can count yourself luck today. We will account for this a youthful negligence to attention this time, but it is important for you to understand. I will not call you a second time. Your school work, social life, eating, breathing and sleeping is secondary to answering my call or else you will never enjoy those things again."

"I am so sorry. I made a huge mistake."

"Yes it was a dire mistake, but we have other information to exchange other than your human capacity to always fail."

I purposefully bit the inside of my lip to stop from speaking anything.

"I have learned you have passed Professor Windsor's first test. The highest score anyone has ever received. He is quite impressed but we are not. How did you pass his test?"

"I studied."

"If we discover you cheated in any fashion or form you are going to wish you had never left your colony."

"I didn't cheat," my voice cracked. "I studied for days for that test. I even had-" I almost finished that by having study partner. No, I wasn't going to tell them about Gaelen about their future king consorting with a human. "I even had studied through meals, skipping them."

"You need to study through meals to perfect your grammar too Ms. Walker. Which brings me to our second item on the agenda for this meeting and that is our concern for your use of your purse. It is fairly generous for a species like yourself to handle, but you are not buying any food, clothing, or anything. The dossier said you are the daughter of a general, wouldn't you think a wealthy general's daughter would spend bit of cash here and there."

"I..." I hadn't considered that point, I didn't want to spend any of it. It was too much and when I already had been given so much opportunity to go to University; I wasn't going to use the money, not when so many people in the colony were suffering.

"Spend the money Ms. Walker, it's not like you can take it home and buy things for the ants in your colony, let alone let it leave the realm."

"I just don't know what to buy, I have everything I could ever need."

she snorted. "Buy something! You're smart, supposedly, buy anything, just spend the money!" She raged, her sterile exterior cracked with the rage of an earthquake tear.

"I will."

"Do so," she smoothed her grey-purple hair as if a few strains had fell out of line from her bun. "Who are you friends with, who are you enemies with."

"I'm not enemies with anyone. I have only met a few people."

"List them"

I shrugged my lips thinking of all the people I have been in contact with. Gaelen was the first to pop into my head, but I wasn't going to say if first to make him seem important in my life. I didn't want to say his name at all given what I had learned about him.

"My hallmate Dylan. We watch tv together at the end of the hall during study break."

"I don't want an essay, just names. I can assume Dylan is a friend of yours."

"Yes, she is. Lance is a friend as well." I tried to think of other people I had said a few words too but I was having a hard time. And then there was Sebol, my competition or perhaps not my competition. it was too confusing if Gaelen and I.... I just did not like her because I was jealous of her but this was myself being enemy-like not her. "I briefly meet Malark in my archaeology class and Sebol at a party."

"You are withholding names?" She interrupted

Her voice was definitely threatening, "I've been hanging out with

Gaelen the most. He is the first guy I met at school and we have three classes together. He just told me a few hours ago that he is your Prince. I've decided to end our friendship."

"That sounds irrational."

"I don't want to cause any trouble,"

"Were you expecting to cause trouble, are you anticipating any trouble by your making, Ms. Walker," her voice was ripe with patronize.

"No. It's just. He is a prince. He shouldn't hang out with me a person from the colony."

"But your human stories are filled with princes and common-folks."

"Those stories were lost with Eclipse."

"Yes they were. I grew up in the pre-Eclipse world. Imagine the destruction to ego those fairytale prince stories created for our kind. We were the minority then, we could never have a story like those that made us hope for a prince. What Prince would marry an alien, those commoners turned princesses were nothing like me. And we only have one king for our kind and his soul has already chosen one to be his princess. These stories of chance for a better life, kept your subservient class focusing on fairy tales instead of aspiring for greater, becoming great on their own, without the aid of a prince."

My mouth itched to one side threatening to talk back. It was their king that helped them to gain control over the earth and the majority class - humans. There were prince-like people in the world without a title and wealth that would treat their kind with love and affection if they hadn't exterminated the humans.

"My mom didn't share those stories with me either. They create false hope."

"Well," her personal moment having passed and her professional demeanor returned. "Y'vroi will only have another Y'vroi written on their soul. If you want to continue your friendship with our prince you may, it would probably benefit him to learn more about the plague of earthlings first hand. Do not be late for our meeting next week."

And without the courtesy of a goodbye, she disconnected the call; my room was back to normal.