Brute: A Dark Sci-Fi Romance Read online

  I would probably just give in and tell them. But he’s handling this.

  “It’s mine,” he says. “And it’s not for sale.”

  That is not the answer they want to hear. There’s a series of clicks and knocks and I know their weapons are now charged and readied. Crash grabs me off the table and throws me under it. I fall in a tangle of limbs, curl up on myself as the gunfire rings out.

  Light and sound assault me, but I am protected from the projectiles. Crash is not. I don’t want to see what is happening mere feet away from me. Because I know it is his murder. They are killing him. They will make me give them the chip, and I will because I don’t want to die.

  I don’t want to die. I don’t want him to die. But he is dying. At least a hundred rounds must have been discharged. I can smell smoke and flesh. I can hear shouting and screaming in languages and tongues I don’t understand. In that moment I learn nobody speaks intergalactic when they die. Dying is too intimate. Everyone resorts to their mother tongue.

  Suddenly, there is silence. It is over. I huddle into the far corner under the desk, expecting to be dragged out at any moment. Even if I give them the chip, I might not survive this. They’ll kill me. Leave my body lying with Crash’s.

  “Pyxel.”

  It’s his voice. I didn’t expect to hear his voice ever again. I peek out and see that he has crouched down next to the desk.

  “It’s over,” he says. “You can come out.”

  I can’t believe he’s talking to me. He should be spattered in bits and pieces across the room. But he’s there, his eyes glowing red fire. His breath is coming faster, not quite a pant, more a deep rumbling breath, like a lion’s growl. He is animated by the battle. I had heard this about his species, how they are physiologically made for combat in extraordinary ways. He is taller than he was before by at least three feet. He is twice as wide as well.

  His head is the size of my torso right now. He is become a bearer of pure death. The exposed skin has become paler than it was before too. The silver sheen is gone, leaving him gleaming white like marble. His suit has grown with him, the material slick and hard.

  I huddle closer to the back of the desk. My fear of them has become a fear of him. Not because I think he’s going to hurt me, but because he is the most fearsome creature I have ever laid eyes on.

  Everything he did to me before this. The sex. The pain. The punishment. It was nothing compared to what he could have done. I realize how gentle he was when he was hurting me. What he did was a mere fraction of what he is capable of.

  “Come out, Pyxie,” he says, using a diminutive version of my name that fits me perfectly, because in this moment I feel tiny.

  “I can’t.”

  He reaches in, scruffs me by the back of the neck and pulls me out gently, like you would pull a kitten hiding in an engine bay out from its hiding spot. I am cramped and curled in a fetal position, too frightened to react.

  I have never seen combat before. I have seen scuffles. I have seen brawls. But nothing like what just happened. That was brutal murder. Strangers slaughtering each other over a coveted item, as if their lives didn’t matter.

  They’re dead. He’s hurt. There’s no way he isn’t. There were three of them firing on him. He was in their line of fire.

  “It’s okay,” he soothes me gently. “You’re okay.”

  “You’re… you were… they…” I am incoherent, stammering words that don’t make sense. I am trying to indicate that he must be hurt too. But he’s not. Now I feel his armor, it is harder than anything I have touched in my life.

  Their energy weapons, projectiles, whatever it was they were using, must have bounced right off it. They did nothing to hurt him. But the Genari are dead. He’s piled them high, a stack of shining armor in the corner of the room. So neat and tidy. I could almost believe that they’re not really corpses. They could just be a stack of foil. That’s what my brain wants them to be.

  “Don’t look,” he says, turning my head gently away from the sight of them.

  * * *

  Crash

  She is terrified. I can feel her trembling against me, she is trying to contain the shaking, but her entire body is a tremor. She can’t look at me, and I know why. The war form is frightening. I am not just three times my usual size. My muscular structure has adapted to make me more powerful and much more deadly. There are myriad internal changes that take place too, but it’s the exterior ones that draw the most attention and generate fear.

  Most obvious is the way I become particularly pale. It is a function of the way the pigment in the skin becomes very much diluted. Along with the other changes in my body, it creates a striking appearance.

  Those Genari never had a chance. Their weapons are not designed for close quarters combat. They prefer to stand back and blast wide rays of matter deforming energy. They couldn’t do that in this small space, so they had to default to photon-powered weaponry, and my armor is a perfect defense against it.

  “Pyxel,” I say in soothing tones as the fangs in my upper and lower jaw retract. Not quick enough though. She spots them and recoils in fear, stopped only by the embrace of my arms.

  Pulling them back takes effort. Usually I let them slide back into the recesses in my skull of their own accord, but curling my lips and putting pressure on the mandibular muscles can draw them back in faster. It also makes me look like I’m snarling, which causes her to scream as if I’m about to devour her.

  I could. My physiology is pure predator, and these teeth and fangs are more than equal to the task of ripping into a tender little treat like her. Our people are able to feed from fresh kill as easily as any carnivore, but my hunger for Pyxel has nothing to do with wanting to consume her. She is beautiful, even while trembling with weakness and fear. I want to take care of her and reassure her. I also want to beat and fuck her until I know every single bit of every single thing she’s been holding back from me. Those Genari aren’t here randomly. They’re here because she asked them here. Scammed them here, really. Just thinking about it makes me bristle.

  Comfort first. Questions later. But I may not have much in the way of time to make her feel better before I set about making her feel worse. She could have any number of aggressive aliens on their way here. That chip is unique in its existence, and if it lives up to even a quarter of our expectations, it will be revolutionary.

  “You’re safe,” I murmur in the softest voice I can manage. It still sounds like gravel being poured down a shaft.

  “I’m not,” she whimpers.

  “I’m not going to let anyone hurt you.”

  “Except you.” She barely says those words, she breathes them in a frightened little whimper.

  I have hurt her, I suppose, but I won’t let real harm come to her. I will make her sore if I need to, and if she needs me to, because she is a little liar and she has brought one war patrol down on us already.

  “How many others are coming?” I try to ask the question as gently as possible.

  “What?”

  “I’m not the only one you tried to sell the chip to, am I?”

  “Well, uh, no.”

  “How many others?”

  “Uhm…”

  “How. Many?” I grit the question out aggressively.

  “Two, maybe three other parties. I forget.”

  I take a deep breath. Okay. I’ve had enough of this. I am getting this chip and getting out. And I’m going to take her with me, because if I don’t, she’s dead. There’s no doubt about that in my mind. She doesn’t understand how valuable that chip is. She has no idea what forces she has called down on herself.

  “Pyxel. Where is it?”

  She extends her wrist. Her sleeve has been covering that part of her body, and I had no reason to look there before. There is a bracelet wrapped tightly around it, with a thicker piece where numbers are displayed. Beneath the numbers is a small keypad, with further numbers marked on little rubber buttons.

  It looks far too smal
l to be the chip we have been searching for, but the expression on her face tells me it is probably real. She’s not confident anymore. She’s scared, she’s upset, and she’s uneasy about showing me it. I extend my fingers toward her hand and she snatches it away.

  “You can’t have it,” she says. “I’m sorry, but it’s not really for sale. I’m sorry I made you come all this way. I’m sorry that I lied to you. I’m sorry I almost got you killed. I’m sorry for everything, but this is mine. And it doesn’t leave my arm.”

  Chapter Five

  Pyxel

  “Sorry is not good enough.” He growls the words at me, and I cringe away from him, though there is no escaping his grasp. He has me.

  His anger terrifies me. But I made a promise to guard these artifacts, and I will do so with my life.

  “You can kill me and take it off my body.”

  His brows drop down and he gives a brief shrug of that massive head of his. He is starting to look like he did before. Smaller. Less threatening. But even a less threatening Crash is still a frightening creature. I am wrapped up in his arms and I know he could tear the hand right off me if he wanted to, take the band. I can’t resist him. Not really. But I can do my best. And that’s all anyone ever asked of me.

  There are generations of Pyles counting on me to protect this. To protect all of it. I am the guardian of everything left behind, and I am not a good one. My father wanted a boy. My mother tried to give him one. In the end, she died birthing the male the Pyles needed, and the baby went with her. I was left with my father. Another man I always found frightening. Not because he hurt me, or was cruel. But because every time he looked at me, I knew I was a disappointment to him.

  He would be so, so disappointed in me right now. I am on the verge of losing everything. At least two factions know where this bunker is, and the defenses are crumbling.

  I am alone in the world, and there is nobody to help me. I am utterly at his mercy, and he has no reason to show me any.

  Crash is the first male to show any protective interest in me, but I know it was only so he could get this trinket. He will take it and he will discard me and I will have lost something important to my family, and to all mankind.

  He stands up. Takes me with him. His arm was around my waist in a gesture of comfort and now it becomes a captive embrace.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Taking you.”

  “Taking me where?”

  He doesn’t answer me. He doesn’t answer me because he doesn’t have to. My questions don’t matter to a brute like him. There’s probably no difference between me and the chip. I and it are just one object for him to take.

  “You can’t! I need to be here! This place needs a protector!”

  I try to explain in hurried words, but he’s not listening. He’s walking.

  We leave the room, and the bodies of the fallen Genari. It’s a relief to be away from death. But it’s not enough of a relief. I buck and twist and try to escape his grip, but I have no chance of getting away. It’s token resistance.

  He hauls me back the same way we came, shifting me to over his shoulder, wrapping his arm around my thighs to keep me in place. I am carried like a prize, my ass exposed to the world, my anus raw from his cock, my pussy still gleaming with traces of that dangerous seed.

  I am taken into the ship. I am put down on my feet just inside the door, which he swings into place and locks. I know that sound anywhere, the sealing of a portal that is now effectively wall.

  “Farti! Get the ship going!” Crash shouts the order.

  “No!”

  I never wanted to leave Earth. I swore I wouldn’t. So many others have. Humans are prized for many reasons. A lot of women are taken as brides. Aliens like to fuck us. Aliens like Crash, who use us as sex toys, breed us, create hybrids sometimes when there’s enough compatibility—and create monsters when there’s not. I have no idea what Crash’s cum could create inside me. Probably nothing, besides death. It almost killed me. And then the Genari almost killed me. That’s two near misses in one day. I feel like I’m living on borrowed time.

  I can hear the clippety-clop of his pet racing around on the upper level. There is a hum echoing through the walls of the ship as it starts to prepare to depart for the stars. I don’t want to go. I want to stay here, in the only home I’ve ever known, in the only lands I’ve ever inhabited. I don’t know what’s beyond the bright blue sky, but I know I don’t want to see it.

  “Please,” I beg him as he lets me slide to the floor. “Please don’t do this.”

  He isn’t listening. He’s moving toward what I guess is an elevator. This ship is small. Too small to allow for much in the way of captive quarters, unless he puts me in that little room where he ravaged me.

  I have the chip on my wrist, but what does it matter? I am hardly keeping it safe. He’s taken it. He’s just happened to take me with it.

  “Crash!” I call his name.

  He turns to face me just as the circle of floor around his feet detaches and begins to rise into the shaft up to what I am guessing is the launch room.

  “You’re going to be alright.”

  That’s not much reassurance.

  I run after him, but the platform has already ascended. I am left in the, what, lobby of this spaceship? A prisoner against my will. There are doors leading out of here, but they are all sealed.

  The ship starts to rock. This can’t be safe. I don’t even have a chair to sit in. Will this take off like an old-fashioned rocket? Or will it leap in an instant, warp into space? Some ships can do that. I’ve seen them blinking in and out of the sky over the canyon.

  Will I ever see the canyon again? Suddenly, I can’t remember what it looks like. There’s a picture in my head, but it’s not a memory. It’s just a flat two-dimensional representation of a concept of the thing. Stress and fear have taken my memory.

  Sssssssbooom!

  There’s an ear-shattering sound that blots out the world. It’s so loud it overloads all my senses, not just my hearing.

  The ship lurches to the side. I am thrown against the left wall, like a pebble in a can. I barely have time to extend my hands and stop my head from slamming into the hard metal.

  Losing my footing, I fall to the floor. The ship rocks and quakes beneath me. There’s the awful sound of twisting metal, and the scent of electronics burning. Acrid and vicious. Smoke starts to fill the cabin, and I hear a solid thud next to me as Crash drops down through what used to be the elevator shaft before an explosive made it look like an old aerosol can after a fire.

  His pet follows him closely, bleating in panicked, high-pitched cries that make this all so much worse. I know what has brought destruction on that innocent little creature: me.

  This is my fault. I have seen death today, and I am terrified I am about to see more.

  Crash lifts his foot to his powerful chest and thrusts it toward the door, which has warped in the explosion. He is back in that great powerful form he takes. His upper lip is curled back up and over his teeth, revealing long, sharp fangs.

  He’s a brute. He’s a monster. He’s the only thing standing between me and a vicious invading force. His boot hits the door like a battering ram and the same door that would have protected them across interstellar space pops like a champagne cork coming out of an old bottle.

  All three of us run out. The little animal first, then me, then Crash taking up the rear.

  “Follow me!” I scream the words over the sound of incoming fire.

  I hate him. He fucked me. He punished me. And then he saved me and now… now would be the perfect time to escape. I could leave him here to be swallowed up by whatever black hole they inflict on his ship. But the enemy of the alien who is trying to liberate my atoms is my friend, and his little dog goat thing doesn’t deserve to be turned to ash by Genari fire.

  We run, red flares of energy bursting around us. The Genari are not good shots. They don’t seem to aim so much as spray their aggression acro
ss the landscape. It’s stupid. If they destroy me, they destroy the chip too.

  For the third time today, we are escaping death. For a third time, I am rushing to the bunker. There has been so much shock, fear, pain, anguish, it’s all one thing now.

  They lose track of us in the forest and the fire gets more scattered. I guess whatever ray of destruction they are using can’t track us through trees. Alien technology may be more advanced, but it’s far from perfect. They’re making a total fucking mess of this in every way.

  We reach the bunker in what feels like record time. Adrenaline makes everything feel immediate, as though we were in the ship one moment, and here the next, though I know we’ve been running full speed through the trees.

  While we were running, my feet felt as though they were skimming over the ground, barely touching the grass. Suddenly I’m heavy again. And I realize that I didn’t run from those laser bolts. I was carried. Crash got me to safety. Alone, I wouldn’t have stood a chance.

  I didn’t have to save him. He didn’t have to save me.

  I don’t have time to thank him. Now it’s my turn to do something useful. I dash forward, pull a lever that doesn’t look like a lever. It looks like the leg of a stone dog. When you activate it, it makes the dog look like it’s urinating. Grampa Pyle’s humor at work again.

  A door opens in the side of the stone wall. I usher Crash and his pet through and once we’re all inside, I hit the red button on the side of the wall. I’ve never pushed it before. It’s a one use kind of thing.

  Loud explosions echo from beyond the wall. Thank god. It works.

  We dash down the dimly lit hall, descending down deep into the earth. It’s a pity we can’t see what’s happening above ground, because it would be a spectacular explosion. The explosions we heard were just the beginning, small primer charges leading to much larger ones that Grampa said would turn the observatory to dust. We’re burying ourselves under a landslide of debris that will take any pursuer a very, very long time to travel through. The Genari’s rays work well on organic material, not so much on the inorganic.