AllFreeNovel
Share Us
If so, they may fetch a handsome price…
Lyv’s hiss of dismay forced me to refocus on the prize and I grinned as I watched the young female slip off the hull of the vessel and fall several feet to the open arms of the Vyessan sea below. Her waters called to me.
“I’ll retrieve her,” Lyv began but I stayed him. He was already too attached. “I will retrieve this one. Pull up the other two.”
Thankful I chose to forgo most of my clothing, I stood on the railing and dove over the edge. I heard the startled breaths of the other female and male on my way down, but I paid them no mind.
The moment I breached the water’s surface, peace washed over me. As a species, the Vyessans were once completely sea-dwelling. And in some small regions, we still were. But it was no longer as it once was. Our kind had slowly, over thousands of years, learned to live on land. This helped us expand our knowledge exponentially until we eventually were able to explore worlds other than our own. Over time, evolution took its toll and now for many of us, we could no longer live permanently beneath the sea. Our planet’s oceans swallowed up the last of our land masses some four-hundred moons ago and we were now trapped in this in-between. The waters called to me, but I could not live below as my ancestors once had. But resources were finite above, and so we scavenged what we could and traded off world for what we couldn’t.
My kind was slowly abandoning this beautiful planet, but I would hold onto her for as long as I could.
Small, strange feet kicked frantically from above. The little female was causing quite a disturbance. Sea creatures both large and small watched her frenzied movements with trepidation. She would scare off some of the lesser dangers but if she carried on like that much longer, her actions would call a larger predator that could not so easily be frightened away.
Amused despite myself, I swam closer, observing her from below. The female seemed unable to keep her head afloat. I did not think her kind could breathe aquatically, and this was confirmed when she bobbed up and down, gasping for breath.
Unease took hold of my limbs and forced me closer, the little creature was drowning. I swam more urgently now, coming up underneath her and easily lifting her into my arms. She screamed, startled, nearly permanently damaging my hearing but settled when our eyes met.
Now aware that I was not an immediate danger to her safety, the adorable little female wrapped her limbs around me as tightly as her meager strength would allow. “Ohthankyouthankyou,” she chanted in a delicate voice. Her limbs tightened meaningfully with each garbled word. I understood them to be her thanks.
“You are most welcome,” I replied, lazily gliding through the water. This interesting female was soft, smooth, and deliciously plump. I enjoyed the feel of her smaller body against my own.
But she startled in my arms as I spoke and would have swallowed a mouthful of the sea had I not tightened my grip on her.
“Youunderstandme!”
“Enough,” I murmured, just now noticing the vibrant blue of her eyes. They were oddly shaped, and adorably small, but striking all the same. As was the soft flush to her skin and pleasingly plump curves of her lips. Swallowing roughly, I looked away from her, noticing my crew gaping at us from above. Nosy cretins. “Back to work!” I barked, startling them from their intrusive perch. The other two Loyobv-look-alikes remained standing beside Lyv, glaring down at me and my parcel with a venom that amused me.
“Iunderstandyou!”
I grinned widely, entertained by her enthusiasm. “As I am speaking your language, you would.”
“Howdoyouknow English?”
Eenglesh? Hmmm, another word I was not familiar with. “I am well versed in most common tongues traveling this sector.”
The female stared at me with a bewildered twist to her pretty features. “Are you going to hurt us?”
I stopped, lazily kicking to keep us afloat but enough to return my full attention to her. “No.” I was not heartless. I would not harm a single hair on her head. But…something told me she would not be so calm if I revealed my plans to sell her and her companions in Jufv. “I have no plans to harm you or yours.”
She audibly sighed, her arms curling tight around my shoulders. There was a pain, it was small, but undoubtedly noticeable in the region of my chest…
I scoffed to myself. I was not feelingguilt. I didnotever feel guilt for taking was what owed to me. As captain of the last remaining Darv ship—the last to have sailed with the late Vyessan King—I no longer served anyone. I had long ago freed myself and my crew from the chains of the crumbling kingdom. We sailed the high seas now, foraging, scavenging, and when necessary,taking. I did not owe this outsider my loyalty…and yet, something was curdling inside of me at the thought of abandoning her.
I decided it was the close contact and knew that though I loathed leaving the sea, I needed to get rid of this sweet-smelling creature that clung so tightly to me.
Grimacing, I hauled the both of us out of the water, my arm braced around her rump as I used the embedded footholds in the exterior paneling to climb up to the deck. While I knew this creature was causing me odd feelings I wouldn’t normally be plagued with and I must extract myself from her presence, immediately—while handing her over to Lyv, I had yetanotherout-of-character response.
This was one I’d never felt before… and dare I say, it waspossessive.Shivering with a sudden bout of disquiet, I untangled the female’s clinging limbs from my waist and ran back to my cabin as if the deadliest of Vyessan beasts had the scent of my blood in their snouts.
Chapter8
LAYLA
“Now what?” Esther asked, watching me closely. Albert scowled at his feet, his arms folded defiantly across his chest. He didn’t trust the alien.
“Now, I think we ask them how to get home?” I asked, not even sure myself what our next move should be. The alien had said he wouldn’t hurt us and strangely, I believed him. He’d saved me from drowning so that was something. Not like our plan would work anymore anyway. Not only had they caught us, but we couldn’t even figure out how to open the pod. It was just as unlikely we’d be able to steer it in any direction to find land…
Not that we’d seen any landforms since crashing here.
