War Games (Alien Instincts) (8 page)

Hours later, Rae was still not satisfied with the readouts on the chemicals. “Only testosterone? That can’t be right.” Throwing the papers down on a table in the med room, Rae slumped into a chair, crossed her arms, and proceeded to sulk.

“Human males do not produce in you the same reaction?” Markar asked in curiosity.

Rae glanced at him, still in a bad temper. “No.”

Markar paused, afraid the answer to his question wouldn’t be the one he wanted. “Is it really so bad, what I make you feel?”

She glanced at him again, but this time his question deflated her anger somewhat. “No.”

That was indeed the answer he was hoping to get, but she did not sound happy to give it. “It is pleasurable then?”

Rae rolled her eyes at him and sighed. “Yes.”
            Markar looked to the side as he thought about the implications of that. “Would you like to experience it again?”

“Not right now. Maybe later.” Rae said in a sarcastic tone as she dismissed him. “There’s got to be something we’re missing. Some other substance that’s affecting me.” She looked away thoughtfully while tapping her finger on her lips. The movement brought his gaze to her mouth and Markar thought back to when she had placed it on his.

“Why did you put your lips on mine earlier?”

Rae looked over to him in surprise. “It’s called a kiss. People do it to show affection or to create intimacy.” At that she dismissed him again and was back to thinking over her own problems. Testosterone was known to create urges in sexual desire, but that still didn’t explain the overwhelming sensations of pleasure that would move through her blood like fire at Markar’s touch. This chemical reaction he caused within her seemed to be the only alien thing about him. The rest of Markar was pretty much perfect in her eyes. Rae began to wonder if certain areas of his body she still hadn’t seen were as human as the rest of him.

She was awoken from her thoughts when Markar asked her a question, except she had missed it because of her fantasies about his body. Turning a slight shade of red, Rae turned towards him, trying her best to be professional. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

“I said, maybe we should try studying the chemicals during or immediately after I am aroused.” Rae narrowed her eyes suspiciously at him at that. If he were a human man, she would assume Markar was trying to manipulate the situation for his advantage. But he was not human. He couldn’t be that devious already!

His suggestion did have some merit. It would make sense for his body to produce the drugs only when he was experiencing sexual desire. She glanced at him again, with less suspicion this time and more interest. Getting up from her chair, she moved towards his. Markar’s eyes widened in surprise, and he leaned farther away from her as he stared at her distrustfully. Rae snorted in disbelief.

“Are you scared of me now, Markar? You’re the one who suggested this.” She placed her arms around his shoulders and looked into his eyes for his answer. She got it when his pupils began to dilate and his hands moved to grip her hips, holding her in place.

“Now, some ground rules. We are going to kiss, but nothing more than that. When I say ‘stop’, we stop. Got it?” Rae didn’t just want to seduce Markar in order to get more accurate readouts on the chemicals; she wanted to evaluate her own reaction to him better. She was nervous that everything could get out of control fast, and this was a way to gauge how much she could trust Markar, and how little she could trust herself.

Rae watched as he nodded his head almost absent-mindedly while his eyes scanned her body as if he could see beneath her clothes. There was only one thing that scared Rae, and that was losing control. Markar, wonderful as he might be, represented those fears for her. She, however, was used to facing her fears head on, so Rae took one final deep breath before leaning slowly towards Markar.

Since he was so much taller than her, he angled his head downwards so she could reach his mouth easier. Rae placed her lips on his slowly, afraid that at any moment she would feel the debilitating drug rush through her system. When nothing happened to her, she delicately poked her tongue out to brush it against his lips. Rae still felt nothing, and began to feel a little more confident. Pushing her tongue forward into Markar’s mouth, she felt his sudden exhale from surprise at her actions. He relaxed his lips to allow her to enter, and when she came in contact with his saliva Rae could feel a tingling sensation begin on the tip of her tongue. She began to pull away from Markar in shock, but he tightened his arms around her and Rae fell forward onto his mouth.

This time Markar’s tongue leapt out and speared between her lips, and the tingling sensation in her own mouth turned into an inferno. Rae’s eyes opened wide in astonishment as fire began to course through her veins, an almost painful feeling it was so intense. The flames died down as quickly as they had shot up, but in their place was pure arousal. Markar began to move his tongue around desperately as if trying to claim her mouth, and Rae moaned in rapture at the drugs still pouring through her system.

Instead of passively letting him kiss her, Rae surged forward to meet his passion as her own rose higher. Her tongue melded with his as she unconsciously accepted more of his essence into her. Rae’s hands moved over his sculpted body as she tried desperately to bring their bodies closer together. Markar’s lips crushed hers as her own positive reaction emboldened his. Rae could feel his form pressed against hers, but still it wasn’t enough. Her hands began to search frantically for the hem of Markar’s shirt. Just when she had finally surpassed his clothing and felt his abs contract under her touch, his mouth left hers.

Rae tried to surge back onto him, but Markar held her away. She watched as his broad chest expanded rapidly with every frenzied breath he took. He was shaking slightly, but yet so was she. Rae looked at him in confusion for a moment until the chemicals in her system began to wane. Now she remembered, they were supposed to stop. A slight exhaustion began to creep up on her as she came back to her senses, and she slumped against Markar.

“Wow. What a hell of a drug.” she mumbled into his chest. Rae moved to try to get off of Markar, but her trembling legs were having a hard time supporting her. She would have fallen if he had not steadied her and then planted her bottom firmly in his lap. “We should test you now.” she managed to slur out. He nodded as he began the procedure with her still sitting in his lap and both her legs dangling over one thigh of his. Markar cradled her to him as they waited for the results, and Rae waited for her mind to clear of the fog of passion.

It was Markar that had stopped them. Rae had had absolutely no control over her actions. She blushed to think that if he had kept going, she not only wouldn’t have resisted, she would have done everything in her power to move things along faster. It was almost gentlemanly, for him to stick to his word. Rae looked up to Markar in wonder that he could have that much self-control when she had found none for herself. When he finally noticed her gaping at him, he smiled down at her, looking like the happiest man in the world.

Thanks to her recent acquisition of the Morian language, Rae could read the information from the analysis herself. Just because she could read the words didn’t mean she could understand all of it. For some of the chemicals, Rae just simply didn’t have any concept of what her brain should compare them to, and thinking about it gave her a headache.

“More testosterone. A
lot
more testosterone. Well that explains a good deal, but still not everything.” Rae looked down the list with Markar. “Oxytocin. That’s interesting.” She frowned at the ‘bonding hormone’ showing up in Markar’s saliva. That was something that could very subtly influence their relationship. There were small amounts of serotonin, tryptophan, but what concerned her most was all of the other elements that she didn’t understand. “What is A-Testosterone-11? Or A-Serotonin-4, 5, 6, and 7?” Rae looked at Markar for an answer, but he just shrugged his shoulders.

“This is unprecedented in the Morian race. I do not know. I have never felt or reacted this way to another being before.” Markar traced his hand over Rae’s arm as he marveled at his own feelings towards the human. Goosebumps formed on her skin where he touched her, and Rae shivered slightly in reaction.

Suddenly, a beeping noise could be heard throughout the entire ship. Rae jumped up from Markar’s lap and whipped her head around, looking for the threat, but Markar pulled her back down. “What the hell is that!” Rae yelled over the alarm. Just as she finished her sentence, the annoying sound stopped.

“That was the announcement that we are nearing the next inhabitable planet in your galaxy!” Markar said cheerfully.

“Your ship’s way of informing you of that is an oven timer?” Rae deadpanned in disbelief. Markar looked at her in confusion. “I’m just saying, I thought you guys had more technology than that. We could at least use some specifics.”

“All of the specific data is in the ship’s computer. I could retrieve it if you would like to see it.” Markar said politely.

Rae’s eyes slightly widened in surprise as she stared back at him. The thought of another planet existing with life on it was still too fantastic to be real to her. “Yes!” she exclaimed with more enthusiasm than she meant to let out.

The data Markar was able to put up on the large computer screen was not just numbers and probabilities; it was actual footage of the planet as seen from space. Rae could see vast swathes of lush forests, with deep gauges in the surface of the planet where barren earth formed huge canyons that descended into darkness. It was as if something originating from the void of space had clawed giant scars into the landscape.

“It’s beautiful.”

What Rae did not realize at the time, was that she did not actually see that much beauty in the sphere, what with it’s jagged scars, but only that the concept of another planet teaming with life on it was beautiful to her. The land itself, she would find out, held more terror for her than delight.

The First Descent

It had been about a week, according to Rae’s sleeping habits, and Markar and her were finally preparing to descend to the new world. The time they had spent together since their last kiss had gone by surprisingly fast. Rae, who was a loner by nature, found Markar’s quiet disposition pleasant, and even though the two didn’t talk constantly, she still found that his attention usually centered on her. She would catch him watching her out of the corner of his eye most times, and he wasn’t hesitant to initiate a casual physical contact between them anymore. Rae often found Markar brushing up against her as he walked past. They were still sleeping in the same bed, and every night the man seemed to be inching closer to her.

Rae was uncertain how she felt about the intimate actions. On the one hand, as a social creature she craved the physical contact of another being and the comfort it could provide, but she wasn’t sure how much of her acceptance over the situation was her natural fondness for Markar, and how much of it was forced through their odd situation. She was of half a mind to accept it all with open arms, and the other half wanted to fight off her feelings with tooth and nail. Either way, Rae felt her emotions twisting inside of her with the force of a hurricane. She just didn’t know which way the storm was headed yet. She glanced uneasily at Markar when Rae realized in which direction her thoughts were turning. “

Is that a sword?” she said in disbelief.

“Yes.” Markar was hooking a large broadsword onto his belt. They both had put on bodysuits to protect themselves from the elements of the planet they were to descend to. Apparently, what him and Rae had been running around in were essentially Morian underclothes. Yet again Rae was unsure how he had found a suit in her size, but she was grateful for it. The fabric was loose enough to move around in comfortably, but fitted. If she had to wear one in Markar’s size, she would be drowning in material.

“Why are you bringing a sword? Wouldn’t it be easier to bring a gun?”

“You never know what you will face when encountering a new planet. It is standard protocol to bring a sword, among other things, for the first descent.” Markar replied automatically as he continued to prepare.

Rae’s mouth dropped open in sudden understanding. “No wonder nobody on Earth took you seriously.” she muttered to herself. Markar had apparently heard her, because he glared in her general direction. The alien had come to her world claiming only peace and alliance, but no one had believed him. Her superiors had spent months trying to wring his real motives out of him, to no avail. After spending so much time with Markar, Rae was convinced that they had been wrong. He really had come in peace, and only peace. But it was understandable that no one would believe that of an alien with a broadsword.

Markar held out a short sword for Rae. “What’s that for?” she asked, before taking it from him and examining it.

“It is your sword to carry, although, it is actually just a long knife. While you are right, and the carrying of a sword on the first descent is mostly tradition for us, there have been times when these items have saved Morian lives. Not all planets are peaceful, and not all creatures wish to form alliances.” Rae nodded in understanding. She was never one to turn down a weapon, no matter how outdated. The knife and its sheath were light in her hands, and beautifully crafted. She hooked it onto her belt, on her left side. Her right was reserved for the gun and holster Markar had given her.

The two of them gathered up the rest of the supplies needed for the trip. Since Markar was unable to pick up any signs of intelligent life from the new planet, the two of them would have to go on foot to make sure there were no civilizations on the world. He explained to Rae that it could take a long time to fully catalogue the land to the satisfaction of Morian protocol.

Rae was no stranger to wilderness. Having grown up on a farm in the middle of nowhere, she wasn’t daunted by the thought of camping or hiking. In fact, she enjoyed that kind of thing and was excited by the thought of exploring. After she had risen in rank in the military, Rae hadn’t seen as much action as she was used to. She was tired of being a pencil pusher, even if it was a safer, and higher paying job. She wanted adventure!