Tempest

By Louisa Trent

When a cataclysmic event threatens the primitive planet on which she's stranded, Amilaw thumbs her nose at intergalactic bylaws and intercedes on the behalf of the humanoid agricultural people she has reluctantly come to love.

 

Her plan: Infiltrate the cave-dwelling Keht, an uncivilized clan comprised of quarrelsome Hunters and Miners. A dangerous proposition at best, for should the clan leader Kore discover Amilaw's sneaky alien presence, the ruthless barbarian will slit her shapeshifting throat.

 

The goal: Amilaw needs to seduce the lusty Keht leader into granting her doomed community sanctuary in the mountainous enclave he rules with an iron-fist, a bloodstained sword . . . and frequent looks over his shoulders for assassins.

 

Amilaw lays her plan well and then gets well-laid. Clamped in chains and brought to her knees . . . and back . . . and belly . . . Amilaw discovers that Kore has needs too, one of which is an insatiable appetite...

 

for her.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trent Publishing
• Release date: Jan 27, 2015
• ISBN: 9781507084007

Louisa Trent

Louisa Trent has been published in ebook format since 2001. Her erotic romances have been with Ellora's Cave, Liquid Silver, Loose Id and Samhain. Refusing to be "branded" ( Louisa has a rebellious streak ) she writes across the genres -- contemporary, historical, paranormal, multi-cultural, and sci-fi. Basically, she writes whatever piques her interest, and she is a writer of many passionate interests. Readers can reach Louisa through her website: www.louisatrent.com .

Book preview

Chapter One

Many revs in the future. On the planet Skea…

A silent scream shattered Kore’s tranquility. Ricocheting and repeating inside his head, the soundless petition reminded him once again he was not like the others of his clan.

At first, he ignored the disruptive mind-noise. After baiting two more hooks with animal viscera, he dropped the weighted gut-line over the side of his small grendoak boat. The surrounding waters splashed, alive with predatory gothia. Cinnabar in hue, cannibalistic in eating habit, the fish were his for the catching. Cut the gut-line, pull them in, and he would fill his empty belly.

Kore unsheathed his blade.

And the mute cry for help grew more insistent.

He hunched his shoulders against the summons then, warded off the keening in his thoughts.

Be gone, demon!

Why would the husky voice not leave him alone?

When finally she sobbed, a distraught wail that tore at his innards, Kore gave up all pretense of fishing. Defeated, he narrowed his sharp gaze on the horizon.

Where are you?

A strange vessel bobbed off in the distance, its awkward keel telling Kore the hull was taking on water. His meal forgotten, he severed his baited hooks, dropped his precious knife, and shoved off. Flexing his arms on the oars, he sliced through ink-black waves.

He must reach her before the ship sank.

The vessel was listing when he arrived. After tying his small fishing boat to the side of the odd craft, Kore stumbled aboard.

Hold on! I am coming to you.

The deck glowed. Heat, unnatural and vibrating, blasted his face, melted the soles of his hide boots, and singed his feet. No matter. He continued onward along the topside of the vessel, casting aside twisted metal plates that resembled a warrior’s armor and burned white-hot.

He would do what he must to get to her.

There was steam. Clouds of scorching steam. Rushing headlong through the dense cloud of vapor, he squeezed sideways through a crumbled portal. He felt her presence then. To get his bearings, he briefly halted his mad charge to peer down below.

Where are you?

The semi-submerged shell of the vessel gave off whirring noises, the like of which he had never heard before. Eerie blue lights blinked from cracked silvery panels. An assortment of charred wreckage shimmered: broken radiant levers; ruptured shiny objects; fractured reflective devices...

Bodies. Twisted remains. Tangled corpses, all seemingly lit from within. They floated like flickering torches, soon to be snuffed out, amid the stew of debris. What manner of being were they?

So much carnage. So many lost lives! And all carried the exotic look of her, the one who lived, the one who had called to him.

The sole survivor, a sprite slight of frame and pale of complexion, remained strapped in her seat. The tilt of her head revealed a long and graceful throat. And her hair! The long tendrils fanned the encroaching waters like seaweed. Deeper in shade than gothia fish, but lighter than the rusty blood that surrounded her, the vermillion-hued strands had him gasping in awe.

He could hardly breathe in want of her.

A series of steps led down into the ruined hulk, sunken well below the waterline now. In his haste to reach her, he bypassed these stairs and dropped smoking feet first into the flooded chamber, wading waist-deep in scalding sea water to her.

Be not afraid, he said by way of reassurance. I mean you no harm.

Once he had freed her from the confining belt that restrained her shoulders and waist, Kore scooped the sprite into her arms. With his blistered hands, he held her fast.

No hardship to carry her. The female weighed less than a grendle feather, even with her strange garb. Neither cloth nor fur, the tight scaly skin of her outer garments sluiced off the water and clung to her shape like the silvery husk of a seed. Above the upright collar of her mantle, her face shone bright – almost as bright as the third moon, Khalia.

Clearly, she belonged to a breed apart. Who was this luminous creature? Whence did she hail?

He had no way to know. The deep sleep of the mortally wounded held her in sway. Barely holding onto a slender thread of life, she could tell him naught. But, if perchance she could hear him, he told her something of himself: I am Kore, leader of the Hunters. Upon my Keht oath, I am here to help you. I heard you call to me.

A long speech for him. To collect himself afterwards, he inhaled, and her scent, that illusive quality no two beings shared, drifted up to his nostrils.

Mine.

The thought beat in him true and steady, as true and steady as his heart.

The sprite’s heart beat a less robust refrain.

Not a trice to spare, Kore forded back through the seething caldron of encroaching sea water for the stairs with the injured female clutched high against his chest, her red seaweed hair dangling over his arm. He was bounding up the treads four at a time when a thunderous boom originating from the ship’s bowels shook the vessel. Another violent clap and a firestorm burst forth. Crackling and sizzling, the conflagration leapt at his face. A hot tongue seared his jaw and neck, its fiery kiss rippling his flesh.

Gnashing his teeth against the pain, Kore rounded over his charge. Protecting her body with his, he raced through the yawning hole that had once been the portal for the outer deck. Fire lapping at his heels, he plunged into the ocean, with the sprite locked under an arm. Neither fire nor water would rip them apart. Neither man nor beast would come between them. Naught would ever separate them again.

The strange vessel went down in a surge of frothy surf that took his small fishing boat with it, and Kore struck out for shore, kicking hard with his powerful legs to keep the sprite’s head above the currents.

Upon reaching dry land, he fell to his knees, straightaway checking for her pulse of life.

Weak, so very weak. Her waning spirit hovered at the edge of the void. Without healing attention, she would cross over to the other side.

The Sald possessed knowledge of herbs and such. Using their unguents and poultices and splints, they could mend her ripped flesh, set her broken bones, make her all of one piece again. Kore asked favor of no one, but he would go to the coastal towers and beg the Sald Elder to save the sprite’s life.

Dots danced before his eyes when he attempted to rise. A rumbling fit of coughing seized him. The fiery rescue had taxed his strength. The arduous swim had sapped what reserves remained.

To save the sprite, he must relinquish her. There was no other way. He would never make the journey otherwise.

Placing her gently aside, Kore forced himself to straighten. Allowing himself only one last look at his beloved, he staggered off alone for the Sald coastal towers.

Halfway there, a fit of bilious retching doubled him over. His chest rattled and burned. His throat was constricted as if by a birthing caul. Weaving on his feet, he continued, fighting to remain alert.

In a field of tall-growing gris, just short of his destination, he lost his battle.

The moons brightened the night sky when he reawakened.

The sprite!

On his hands and knees part of the way, reeling the rest, Kore returned to the spot where he had left her.

Not even a shallow imprint of her form remained in the ivory sands. The incoming tides must have swept the sprite back out to sea...

If ever she had existed at all.

Chapter Two

Five revs later…

Amilaw plugged the seedling into the muddy soil, then reached into her basket for another fledgling plant. The next row over, Sister Sotara mirrored her movements. Exactly. So did Brother Sethne. And so on and so on it went, right on across the bog. No one looking at anyone else, no one speaking, moving in homogenous, monotonous...fucking boring sync...every member of the Sald community planted the gris.

A scream clawed for release inside her throat.

Huzzah! Sometimes, the dull sameness got to her, and she just had to vent. But to who? The Sald never expressed negative opinions on any subject, including the subject of herself, the misfit alien who had mysteriously crashed and burned on their planet. These folks just wouldn’t understand her need to complain.

Or gossip. A malicious rumor, the juicier the better, would positively have made her day. She’d even volunteer to be the object of the backstabbing. Sadly, though, there’d be no takers.

The Sald didn’t consider gossiping nice.

In the Sald vocabulary, there were like a gazillion-and-one ways to describe nice – the nice weather, the nice seas, the nice friggin’ dirt – and not one adjective to describe rotten.

Amilaw knew all about rotten. She hated planting the rotten seedlings in the rotten mud beside rotten Sistah Sotara. That bitch’s sunny chirpiness pissed her off. And her breathing! The woman inhaled and exhaled, like all the fucking time. Fucking annoying.

And that was where she and the Sald once again differed ever so slightly. The cheery humanoids never succumbed to petty irritations. Forget about getting ripped. Volatile emotion sailed right over their level-headedness. Guided by an inner light – inner, because on this retro planet electricity hadn’t been invented yet – the Sald followed their preordained destiny without protest or ambivalence or philosophizing.

Okay. So way cool – she could dig mellow. And being comfortable in one’s own skin was a groovy thing to behold. She had oodles of admiration for folks who got in the Zone and sat tight there. Unfortunately, laid back just wasn’t her. Some days, she got rubbed the wrong way. Other days, her bad mood originated with nothing specific. Say she’d gotten up on the wrong side of the sleeping mat or her Sald hood was wound too tight or whatevah had pulled her out of Zen mode and stuck her in a bad place and she lost her equilibrium and forgot all about anger management and flipped someone the bird. Big friggin’ deal. It was only a finger.

Au contraire. Not to her adopted clan. A raised middle digit would’ve wrecked the Sald. Of course, before the pile-up, she’d first have to explain the significance of the salute. At the futility of that particular exercise, the scream hovering at Amilaw’s tonsils bounced from her tongue to the roof of her mouth and slammed against her uvula, where it hung in suspended animation. Neat trick.

The Sald would’ve approved. Orderliness was everything in this agricultural cooperative.

Just for the messy hell of it, Amilaw subversively skipped the next dimple in line for planting and stuffed the gris seedling where it didn’t belong. The mini-revolt made her feel ever so much better. Her scream of frustration actually lost momentum. Though, the yawn that replaced it nearly cracked her jaw upon exiting.

Amilaw hung her head. She was so evil. Where was her empathy? After all, the planet was still evolving. Someday, the Sald too would turn snarky. They just needed to catch up with everyone else. But until that happened, the community believed emotion led to all manner of chaos, which in turn led to strife, then conflict. Brrr! Musn’t have conflict. Conflict, bad. Very bad. Harmony, good. Very good. To that end, the Sald trained infants not to cry, children not to misbehave, adults not to disagree. Outbursts and spontaneity were gently discouraged, resulting in a marked absence of laughter, anger, joy...passion.

Privacy amongst many, solitude in a group, individual autonomy surrendered for the benefit of the community – Amilaw could repeat the Sald party line by rote. On this temperamental planet, where dry land was at a premium, where the demands of the population versus availability of natural resources teetered precariously, where a shift in the sensitive ecosystem – even a small one – could lead to large scale annihilation, sublimating personal desires made sense. Giving up all the selfish goodies in life increased the likelihood of the colony’s survival. But sometimes she just wanted to shout, "I understand. I understand. I friggin’ get it already. Now let’s partaaaaay!"

Never happened. The Sald didn’t ever let loose and, frankly, the quiet was getting to her. Would she ever grow accustomed to the silence? The loneliness? The joyless solemnity? Would she ever get over her need to touch and be touched?

She missed hearing the sound of her own voice. Missed listening to others talk too. Not in congregate. Group mumbles didn’t count. Single speak. During community meets, when the Elder put an issue up for a vote, Amilaw kept waiting for that one contrary nay to pop up amid the chronically agreeable ayes. But no. The Sald voted unanimously and always in the affirmative. Sometimes – just to mix things up – she’d yelled out a nay even if she concurred.

The kind-hearted Sald always forgave her bratty behavior. And that made her love them all the more.

Still, for crying out loud, she wasn’t asking for much here. They could’ve at least hummed while they worked. Humming would’ve broken the endless humdrum of gris planting. Or, if they wanted to go really wild, they could’ve belted out a few songs while stuffing seedlings into the mud. She’d happily lead the chorus, in harmony, of course. Or, ruling out singing and humming, what about telling stories? Funny anecdotes. Maybe some wisecracking. Better yet, they could’ve swapped jokes.

Dirty jokes. Yeppers! There was nothing better for the doldrums than yukking it up over the nasties. She had a whole slew of ’em siphoned off from intercepted Earth television. Since the broadcasts were revs old, only the most unsophisticated adolescents would find the humor titillating, but, what the heck, they’d do in a pinch.

Not this pinch. In this squeeze, the punch lines would’ve gotten so lost in translation.

She adored the Sald, she did, but they were screwing with her mind. And getting wasted had never sounded so good. But tanking up was another little something the Sald just didn’t do. As in never. Leave it to her to land her ass on a totally dry planet.

Blocking another yawn with the back of her hand, Amilaw plugged another gris seedling into another shallow dimple.

Okay, so humor was out, and she should’ve known better. In the five revs since she’d been exiled on this laugh-forsaken planet, she’d never witnessed the serious-minded Sald do anything that anyone anywhere would classify as fun. These folks did not waste time, which was kind of strange because, just like electricity, time hadn’t been invented here yet, either.

If a more sincere, more industrious, more cooperative group than the Sald existed, she’d never bumped into them in her travels and, apart from the planet Earth, she’d been just about every place solar sails and fusion drives...and trickery...could transport her.

Descended from a race of nomadic space travelers who’d planet hopped at whim – part education, part amusement – early on, Amilaw had learned getting along meant going along, the when in Rome do as the Romans do brand of assimilation. Like a chameleon, she could adapt to fit whatever the culture, be it reptilian or android or fire-breathing dragon.

Not here. For real, a fun-loving space chick like herself couldn’t fit in here. She’d met looser mechanical ’bots than the strait-laced, hard-working, egalitarian, humorless Sald. As far as she was concerned, they’d taken their all-for-one-and-one-for-all conformity to an absolutely ridiculous extreme. Sometimes, like now, she just felt like exploding.

Wait for it….

A-a-a-achoo!

Granted, the pretend sneeze was juvenile, but sometimes desperation led to desperately inappropriate measures. So what the hell, she let another one, a bigger and better one, go.

A-a-a-a-achoooo!

Pardon me, brethren, Amilaw said, exhuming a crisp square of woven gris from the sleeve of her tunic and honking her nose into the folds.

Not an eye lifted. Not a head turned. Not a hand lost its sync. Unfazed and completely tolerant, the Brothers and Sisters continued plugging gris into their straight prescribed rows while her prescribed row wavered back and forth, as crooked as Keht honor. And hands down, that clan won the most-unscrupulous-cutthroats-ever-to-blight-the-Universe award. The Keht wore animal fur. Need she say more?

Yep, thank you, she would. The Keht were the antithesis to the Sald in every way. No one got more primitive than those scurrilous cave dwellers. The Keht were so hostile, they couldn’t get along with each other, never mind anyone else. Up until a few revs ago, the two factions of the clan – the Hunters and Miners – had been so busy killing each other they hadn’t had time to do much else.

Amilaw sighed. Not that her own large and extended family hadn’t squabbled because they had. Like, all the time. She came by her ornery genes honestly. But no matter how cantankerous, her family of shapeshifters hadn’t gone around killing each other. Sometimes, she missed her disagreeable relatives so much, she ached with the missing. And there was no relief from that ache.

Revs earlier, a horrible explosion had destroyed her loved ones. Not only her family, but her entire advanced race had perished, which made her the last of her kind.

Amilaw sniffed. In the beginning, she wished she’d died too. It had just been so harrrrd being alone. But as dumb luck would have it, her spacecraft had crashed in the seas off the coast, and somehow, she’d washed up on shore where the Sald Elder had found her. After carrying her to the Sisters’ tower, he’d patched her back together.

The rest, as they say, was history.

That bore repeating. Or maybe the story of her recuperation was just plain boring. Whatevah. Every member of the community had pitched in and nursed her back to health. Their loving…and damn irritating…positive attitude had dispelled the bleakness that surrounded her grieving heart. The stubborn Sald had saved her life.

She would’ve had a far different outcome if her transport had ditched near the Keht caves.

If the Keht leader, Kore, found a mutant like her, for sure he would’ve slit her alien throat.

* * * * *

Kore sensed the galtur’s presence long before the beast made its move. A finger to his forehead, he signed a warning to his band of new Hunters.

Disperse!

The cocky bucks disregarded his order. All novices to the kill, they scored the sky with their spears.

Ah, the swaggering arrogance of youth. They owned not a sharp tooth between them, yet his band of green killers stood ready to swallow a mouthful they were ill prepared to chew.

Kore’s whip would teach them this lesson. Alas, some students only learned the hard way. Here, humiliation would correct the error of their thinking far more effectively than a few bloody stripes applied to their backs.

His reckless young hunters had underestimated their humpbacked quarry. Though blind, the creature would not prove easy prey. In compensation for sightlessness, his animal brother possessed a heightened sentience.

The same might be said of Kore.

He felt occurrences before they happened. When he least expected it, an image portending disaster would flash before his mind’s eyes, a hapless circumstance he rued to himself and denied to others. Verily, his ability to sense danger slashed like a double-edged sword. On more than one occasion omens had saved his life. But they might just as easily get him killed.

His clan possessed many worrisome tendencies, smiting down those differing from themselves only one of them. This irksome habit led the Keht to bury what they could not understand. Unfortunately, much escaped the comprehension of his intolerant clan.

In avoidance of a premature entombment in the overflowing catacombs, Kore kept his heightened sentience a secret. As much as he reasonably could, he stayed to himself…while leading his clan, stopping the Hunting and Mining factions of the Keht from blood-bathing each other, and bringing home meat for the skewer.

Today, he had an additional responsibility – preventing the meat from skewering his overly confident band of young Hunters.

A thankless occupation, Kore mused, as the galtur charged. Its powerful jaws snapping to reveal jagged yellow fangs, its bristled snout sniffing the air for vulnerability, the animal lowered its massive head.

The galtur had singled out his victim. The honor would go to Krendle, a strutting young blood with pretty flexed muscles. A little too convinced of his invincibility to run for his life, the callow Hunter stood his ground, thus making himself an attractive target. The beast, though ugly, was not addle-witted.

The same might be said of Kore.

Before Krendle’s handsome conceit got him unhandsomely gored, Kore pushed the posturing youth to safety. Stepping into the path of the beast’s attack, he assumed a wide-legged stance.

And waited. When Kore’s disembowelment seemed inevitable, he let his