His to Mate Read online

  “Floored, really. I’d managed to get the basement at a constant temperature, but as I said, it had started to warm up. I thought I’d hit some point where maybe I didn’t need to exercise because those cold walls finally warmed up a little, from the inside out. I was still trying to puzzle it out when they came for me.” Skye laughed, her eyes on the wispy clouds overhead. “I thought I’d never see clouds again.”

  “We’re still waiting on rain and we have no idea what the seasons will be like, but my guess is, the aliens will make sure we don’t have anything too bad. They had the tech to end a new ice age, so I have to guess they can keep it at bay.”

  “I hope so. I do not want to live in a basement ever again. Even if I did clean the potty out once a week, and clean the place every day, it started to smell a little funky down there. And I don’t think I could do it all on my own again. That shit was hard.”

  “I can only imagine. I think I’d have lost it.”

  “Maybe. Maybe I did, and this is all a hallucination? Who knows? It’s as good as any other explanation I’ve heard so far.” Skye sat back in her seat, her blue eyes dancing with mirth. “Maybe we’re all crazy?”

  The serious expression in her eyes made her smile seem frozen, maybe even broken, and for a moment Ann’s heart hurt for the other young woman. “Maybe we are. I remember hearing about a theory that we were all players in some kind of cosmic video game, and that this wasn’t real. That our reality wasn’t real. And the more I thought about it, the more my brain just twisted up into a knot. All we know, for sure, is that our reality is real, don’t we? My reality isn’t yours and vice versa. And let’s stop there before I get a headache.”

  Both women laughed with the humor of the moment, and the sad part passed. Ann was glad she hadn’t asked Skye about her family now. It might have proven too painful if she had. For both of them.

  “Can I ask you something?” Skye said softly, her voice barely even registering.

  Ann bit her lip but nodded her head. She was a leader now, right? She couldn’t show fear or back off from answers that people sought from her. “Sure.”

  “What’s it like to be married to one of them? Mated, whatever they call it.” She didn’t look judgmental, she looked like she simply wanted to know the answer to something that puzzled her deeply.

  “It’s great for me. I mean, they’re just like human men, physically, and my mate and I are one of the lucky ones that are truly, I guess soulmates is the word? We just click. And it’s like any other marriage from before. It’s intense though, the way we are with each other, and well, a lot more than I expected, really.”

  “Cool. So, it’s not like they beat you and make you have sex with them?” She looked like that might have been what she was afraid of.

  “Not at all. When you go through the mating ceremony, you’re joined, so you feel sexual desire for each other, that’s the point, I guess. To make babies. But, it’s a bond, and a little piece of what makes you who you are, is joined to a little piece of him, it’s really amazing to see, I can tell you that. But you become a part of one another, and abuse or rape would be out of the question. They wouldn’t do that to themselves, so they don’t do it to their mates, who are a part of them now.”

  “I’m really glad to hear that. I didn’t want to be impolite, but it really bothered me, wondering if all of you were abused, and I was some lucky case that will probably be alone for the rest of her life without a mate.”

  “I hope you aren’t alone. I really do. But, until your lucky lady shows up, you’re welcome here if you get lonely. Especially during the day. You can go on my little expeditions with me, if you’d like.” Ann waited for Skye to finish squinting at her.

  “Expeditions? What are those?”

  “I’m hunting down supplies, everything we might need. The men are doing it, of course, but they’re looking for immediate needs. Clothes, food, things like that. I’m looking for more seeds, medical equipment and supplies, books, all kinds of things.”

  “Sure, that sounds great. Meg and I are doing classes in the evenings, so my mornings are free. We could all join you, if it would help?”

  “Yeah, sure that sounds great. The more the merrier. I do have one rule, though.” Ann’s face tensed, and she looked away before she turned back to Skye, her expression very serious. “No valuables are to come back to our area. None. Jewelry, guns, paintings, anything like that, none of it can come back to this place. I just, I don’t want people fighting over glittery pieces of rock, or oil paint that’s mixed in an awesome fashion, ever again. Does that make sense?”

  “It does, yeah. I agree. When do you want me to be here?”

  “Around 8 am would be good. We can get back before lunch then, unless we find a lot of stuff. Then I’ll call a crew of soldiers to bring a truck to load it up. Oh, and I have to take guards with me, wherever I go.”

  “No problem. I can understand why. I’ve heard things, things I don’t like. Things that sound far too familiar, for my taste.”

  “About the wolves or about Rager choosing me for a mate?” Ann decided to be blunt and open about both problems.

  “Both of those, actually. I would hope this new world had space enough for all of us to live and get along in.” She didn’t look happy about the fact that it wasn’t. “But no, there are some whiny bitches out there, thinking that some dirty… wolf is taking their man. Or there’s a man out there that thinks you’re a skank whore that shouldn’t be married to the Supreme Overlord, or whatever he’s called. It’s all insanity.” Her eyes rolled, but then she perked up. “At least you aren’t as insane as the rest of them.”

  “Wait before making that decision!” Ann laughed and poured more tea into their glasses. “You might find I’m the worst of the bunch. I have a lot of ideas about what the world should be like, and which way we should head in the future. If I have my way, the Earth just isn’t ready for the kind of peace I have in mind. Or maybe it is. She shook off most of the population like they were an infestation of fleas, didn’t she?”

  “You’ve got that right, Ann. I think the world is ready for exactly that, and if that’s the direction you want to go in, I am 100 percent behind you, girl. Lead us on.” Skye lifted her glass and Ann tilted hers against it until they tinkled. Maybe the future she dreamed about was possible, after all.

  11

  A week passed, a week of late nights, late mornings, and sweet little gifts from Rager. He’d taken the day off, and they were out in his transporter so they could explore the city together.

  “There are parts that even my soldiers haven’t explored yet,” he said as he put the transporter down on a clear spot between two very tall buildings and turned the machine off. “None of us have been out here, and I assume you haven’t either?”

  He turned to her with a smile and she shook her head. “No, I don’t go this far out, even with that soldier you assigned to me.”

  “Good. It’s not necessarily dangerous but the breeding group has started to let animals out and some of them might be aggressive.” They stepped out of the transporter together and walked out into the debris of what had once been part of a major city. “Not that we’ve really started on predator animals yet.”

  “I wish you’d leave snakes off the list,” she said as she walked beside him, her eyes on the buildings. She scanned each one to categorize them into things that might be useful. A pharmacy that had likely been ransacked already, a jewelry store that was also likely empty, and a few more. Clothes, food, survival. That’s what she mainly wanted and she found those on the other side of the street.

  “But they control rodent populations,” he answered and waited for her to finish her roundup. “We’ve already seen some rats in other parts of the country. It won’t take them long to breed enough to travel.”

  “Non-venomous snakes then, please. Let’s look in the camping store first, shall we?” she asked and headed in that direction. She glanced back and saw he watched her with amusement. “Wh
at’s so funny?”

  “Nothing, just your dislike of things that slither. You aren’t afraid of my tongue, thankfully.”

  “Or your fingers. But right now,” she paused and turned to him with a flirtatiously impish look, “we need to see if there’s any survival gear left in this little store. Focus, Rager.”

  She didn’t exactly try to stop the way her hips swayed as she walked into the open door of the bedraggled shop.

  They didn’t find much in the shop, a few cylinders of propane, some lantern wicks, but some rain jackets in bags and a few tents might prove useful to others in the future. Rager loaded those into the transporter and met her at the pharmacy. There she found some gauze, a few plastic toys, and some braces for a variety of joints that might be sprained. They put those in the transporter too. She looked down the aisle for women, and found a few things she could use. She crammed a few bottles of lotion into a backpack she carried and the packs of tampons and pads that she found.

  She turned around to scan the shelves behind her and found boxes of pregnancy tests and not much more. She left the tests where they were, fear a knot in her throat. Others might be happy to use them, but she didn’t want to take them. Not right now. This was all still new to her, and she didn’t want to think about it. Not yet.

  “Find anything in the men’s section?” she called out and walked over to him. She found him in front of a display of razors.

  “I can’t believe you were all still using these,” he said, mystified.

  “Well, your little light zappers aren’t permanent either, I noticed,” she said, a little miffed, but deep down she knew his remark hadn’t really stung, she was simply reacting to the sight of the pregnancy tests still.

  “No, I don’t mean that, I meant that the technology is so old. We designed our system to allow hair to grow back, if it was wanted, but these were so brutal, and caused so many problems that we left them hundreds of years ago.” He looked up at her and she quickly turned to look at the razors.

  “We were working on laser hair removal. It was still new to us, though, and really expensive.”

  “You all placed value on the strangest things,” he said and they left the store. “Shall we have lunch over there?”

  She turned to look at where he had pointed. There used to be a tiny café between two of the shops, and a table and two benches, all made of concrete, were still there. “Sure, that looks like as good a place as any.”

  She unloaded the food from the transporter and Rager brought some tableware with him. Together they filled their plates with a bean casserole that she’d thought up and some salad. She had a couple of glass bottles filled with tea and they sipped at that as they ate.

  “The cream is from our cow,” she told him proudly. She’d searched quite a few books before she found the one that told her how to make sour cream and butter from cow’s milk. She’d also learned about pasteurizing the milk to make it safe. She’d been glad when she found that section.

  “Is it? It’s very good,” he said and added another dollop to his casserole. It was made from pinto beans and spiced with some of the lovely spices she’d found in her explorations. “I’m glad you’re settling into this, Ann.”

  “It’s not been easy. So much has changed. But then, I guess it has for you as well. What kind of food do you have on your planet?” It had only just occurred to her that there might be different plants and animals there.

  “We mainly eat a vegetarian diet, as we do here, but we have more fish. Some you don’t have here because they died out long ago, or they bred into different kinds, but most of the things are the same. We even have cheese on our planet.”

  “I’ve tried to make some cheese. I miss that stuff. We’ll see in a few weeks how well I’ve done.” She didn’t say that she had a lot of hours to fill in the day since he’d started to work so much. She just told him about the things she’d done. “I’m glad you’ve taken today off. Kind of.”

  “It was time. We needed some time together. You’ve been looking… stressed.” His eyes examined her, and she felt like a bug under a microscope. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing really. I’m just very busy. It leaves me tired, all the things I manage to get done in a day. When we were still in the bunker there wasn’t a lot to do. Sometimes I’d stay awake for two days reading a book, then I’d sleep a few more. There wasn’t a lot to do. Even when we tried to stay busy, there were times when I was actually bored.”

  “I would hate to be locked away like that for so long.” He rested his elbows on the table and looked at her, his head propped in his hands. “I’m glad we came here.”

  “Were you considering going somewhere else then?” She smiled but she watched him, curious.

  “There were a couple of planets we considered. Earth was the most like ours, though, we just needed to thaw it out.”

  “And repopulate it.” She’d meant it as a joke, but in the back of her mind, she cringed. Why did she have to bring that up?

  “That too. We’ll try it this way, and if it doesn’t work, well, we’ll just gestate a few thousand people in the same lab where we’re bringing animals back to life.”

  “That sounds like a cold way to go about it. They’d have no parents. What would it be like for them? How would you do it?” She waited for an answer, but he shook his head.

  “It would have to be cloning, so they’d have had parents, but it would have been a long time ago. We’d find DNA where we could and reproduce it in the lab.”

  “That’s how you’re reproducing the animals?” She thought about her lovely cow, and wondered if she’d lived before.

  “Yes, but we have to be careful. We don’t want to bring some of your people back, do we?” He laughed, but she could see he was serious.

  “No, you’re right. Some people are better left dead.”

  “Exactly. So, we’d rather reproduce humans the natural way. To give them all a chance at having a good life.”

  “Couldn’t your lab tweak the genes though? Make sure that things like mental illness and physical disabilities didn’t exist?”

  “We could, yes. But what would that get us? A world that looks exactly the same, across the board. We don’t look at those things as bad, Ann. We do work to make sure the people with these disadvantages are cared for, however. We try to help them lead positive lives, too.”

  “I like that.” She propped her own head on her hands and looked at him. “What do you want to explore next?”

  “Your body, my sweet, but we need to check that hotel and the other building before I can explore you.”

  “Hm. I think you should do me then the other.” She made sure there was a twinkle in her eye as she looked at him. He leaned closer to her, as if he wanted to crawl over the table and kiss her. But he leaned back, took a deep breath, and shook his head.

  “No, duty calls. Your people need things we can’t give them, so we must hunt them down.”

  “Fine, but I won’t be happy about it. What are we looking for specifically?”

  “You can be as grumpy as you like, Ann.” He stood up with a wink and smiled. “We’re looking for bedding, beds, room dividers, things like that. I thought a hotel would be the best place to look.”

  “You’re right. Won’t we need another transporter?” she asked and followed behind him. When she caught up to him, she placed her hand in his. She smiled when his fingers closed around hers and he didn’t let go.

  “One will come tomorrow if we find what we need.” He pulled her hand up to his mouth and kissed it. “Let’s see what we find first.”

  They found a lot of dust on the first floor, but beneath that, they found the laundry with bedding nestled in plastic tubs. Everything they could want for a bed was there, and upstairs there were quite a few hundred single and double beds to take. Room dividers weren’t really an option, but they did find those in the next building. They were dividers for workstations but they would do the job.

  “Why do you need
all of this?” Ann asked as they finally left the two buildings and boarded the transporter.

  “We have a load of people coming in from Illinois. We’re going to put them in the hotels in our sector, but a lot of them will have to stay in other shelters. We don’t have enough houses or apartments cleared for all of them yet.”

  “Ah, I see.” She nodded as he guided the transporter off the ground. “That sounds like a huge amount of people.”

  “They were all in a bunker up there, some kind of government facility. I expect a few might be trouble, but we’ll soon have them settled in. I hope. Otherwise, life won’t be pleasant for them.”

  “What do you mean?” She was puzzled and looked at him. “I thought you weren’t going to have a prison here?”

  “That was the idea, but I should have known better. Some of your people are so… selfish, Ann. I’ve never encountered it before, not until I came here. It’s staggering, really.”

  “It can be, especially if you haven’t seen it before.” Ann’s thoughts were on Rex, but she didn’t say it. “It’s hard to get used to, and honestly, I don’t think you ever do.”

  “No, and it seems we can’t show them a better way, so we’re putting the ones that break too many rules, or go too far in a place down toward Mexico. They’re kept alone out there, where they can’t hurt anyone here.”

  “Unless they join together,” she pointed out, not sure it was a good idea at all. “That’s when you get problems, when like-minded people join up and hatch up plots.” She trod carefully and chose her words as best she could. She didn’t want him to even think about people like Rex.

  It would kill Amanda and Stephan if Rex were discovered, and it might hurt her parents, too. And her, in the long-run. She already had enough people that hated her, she didn’t need to add to it. For now, Rex hadn’t hurt anyone, he’d just been himself and hot air. Maybe he’d calm down once wolves started to have more freedom.