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I hadn’t even noticed he’d woken up and I jump with a start.
He makes fists and tries to pull his arms apart, his muscles bulging from the effort. “Untie me immediately!”
I shake my head and move a couple of feet away from him, and he surprises me by flipping onto his back to watch me. “No. Why would I do that when you tried to kill me?”
His eyelids droop again. “I-I didn’t know you w—”
He passes out again and I’m left staring at him. His wound appears to have stopped bleeding, but it looks nasty.
My eyes run over his face. I was right when I thought he had squished features. His nose looks as if it’s missing a bone. Below it his closed mouth has black lips with fangs protruding from them. From his long black hair, pointy grey ears poke out. He reminds me of a humanoid bat.
My eyes drop lower still. His torso is a maze of knotted muscles, with huge slabs of muscle on his chest, and below that, double stepping stone abs. I can’t stop myself, and my eyes go lower still. He's wearing black leather pants that fit him like a glove. I suck in a gasp when I see his feet are a mix of something that have come from the ape family, and a bird of prey.
This is the tenth man, I’ve seen in my life. I’ve been luckier than most. Working at the space station, I’ve seen male scientists. Most women on Earth only get to see their brothers and father’s if they’re lucky, when they call in a couple of times a year after visiting their other wives.
I look back up to his face and jump, startled, when I see his eyes are open and staring intently at me.
Phalon
I study the female as she studies me, unaware I’m awake. I'm mesmerised. Although almost the same physically as the species who inhabit this planet, I know she’s not a native Vysarian. For a start, her skin tone is different. I've never seen a Vysarian with yellow hair either. It's been so long since I’ve seen a female, my gut pulls tight, disgusted with myself for almost ending her life.
“Why did you try to kill me?”
Her question catches me off guard. I’m not prepared yet to answer. I’m in pain and I’m weak. I wanted to eat the forest creature, I tore out it’s throat and even chewed its flesh in my mouth, but I spit it out in the end. Orange scaled creatures contain a toxin in their skin that can induce temporary paralysis. I might be on the brink of starvation, but I don’t have a death wish.
“I-I thought you were a Vysarian male.”
“Why would you want to kill a Vysarian male? Are you at war with them?”
I huff at her naivety. “At war with Vysarians? Badligons are at war with all species in the Perinqual Galaxy.”
“Is that what your species is called? Badligons?”
I don’t answer her. Every species in this galaxy knows of us, yet she is unaware. “What are you? Did you come here in your own craft?”
She doesn’t answer me. She stands up, but her legs are visibly unsteady. She puts her hand inside a pocket in her pants and withdraws a small package. She rips into the covering and bites into it. The sight of another eating makes me salivate and my stomach growls angrily. She stops chewing and extends her arm, offering the grey bar. “Want some? You sound like you need it more than me.”
I shake my head. “I can only eat raw meat...preferably Vysarian male.”
Her eyes bulge and her jaw drops, and I can see the half-chewed food inside her mouth sitting on top of a small pink tongue. “You-you’re a cannibal...you were going to eat me, weren’t you?”
I shake my head, my brow pulling tightly together in my denial. “I don’t eat females, that’s why I saved you when I realised my error. My kind don’t eat any female species, there are too few of them.”
“There are others of you?” Her voice has become high, and she turns her head and looks up, for all the good it will do her, we are under the cover of the treetops. I shuffle my shoulders to move position and try to ease the throb of my wound, but the movement cause whatever contraption the female has used to secure me to dig into my spine. I grimace in pain. “Untie me!”
“No. I don’t trust you. By the sounds of your empty stomach, you are clearly very hungry. I’m not going to be your next meal.” She looks back up to the canopy of the trees. “Or the meal of your Badligon friends.”
“I have no friends. And for this reason, you can trust me that I won’t eat you.” She gulps. “I am an outcast. My clan shunned me because I wouldn’t go against an age-old law prohibiting eating females. Our clan was recently attacked by another species not of this planet. They killed our leader and many others. We vowed to get revenge. A female who appeared to be a similar, if not the same species as you helped them, and we have since learned there are four more of the same species females with her.” The female gasps. “The remaining clan vowed to kill and eat them all, including the females, but killing females goes against our beliefs. I refused, and my clan turned on me. I’m no longer one of them. If they find me, they will kill me.”
The female paces back and forth, her blunt fingers in her mouth. She abruptly stops her pacing and turns to face me. “Does your clan know where these females are?” I shake my head. “Damn it. How about you? Have you seen them?”
I breathe in deeply. I have information I can barter with. “Before I was banished, a clan member told of seeing two females with a green-skinned male, near to a battle ground he was feeding at.”
The female gasps and goes down on her haunches by my side. “Where is the battleground? Is it far from here?”
I nod. “By foot, it will take you a week...if not longer. You would have to stay concealed from the skies. If my clan were to spot you, you would be dead and lining their stomachs before you even realised your feet were lifting off the ground.”
Her eyes are wide, until she blinks. “Like you had me, just now?”
