Wrecked - A Dark Sci-Fi Romance

They are getting too old. They are seeing what is not there, but the most important hurdle has been crossed. They have allowed her to stay in our underground city. The lair of the Fendinn has been opened to her.

“Stay quiet,” I murmur in her speech. I do not want her to utter a single sound that might make the elders change their minds. We need the shelter of the rocks above. I need the heat from the molten core of the fires below. And humans—all humans I have met—have a talent for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.

She is sweating, liquid beading on her skin. She will need water. Lots of it. I have seen humans dehydrate in my realm, but I will not allow that, or any other harm to befall her.

“What kind of power? Humans have none. Especially not the farmed kind.”

“Destiny has a power of its own. It twists and takes the worlds around it, bends them to its will. She is in the grip of destiny. She was thrown from the stars to our sands with no major injuries. Be sure, fate has a plan for this one.”

Fate and destiny can have all the plans they want to have. I have plans for her too.

“Take her,” the elder says. “But know, though you may possess her, there are greater forces at play, and if it should come to pass that fate comes for her, let her go to it. We will not sacrifice this home for one broken human.”

I know the elders are wise, but sometimes even I doubt them. I am looking at this desperately lost, permanently stranded little human female and I am at a loss to see how she could ever pose any kind of a danger to beings such as us. Even the weakest of our kind are stronger than this.

“You will not have to sacrifice. I will do what is necessary to take care of her.”

The elders make a sound I have not heard them make before. One of doubt. It strikes me as unfair. There are other humans in the burrow. Usually their meeting with the elders is nothing more than a formality.

“It is too late,” one says to the others. “Fate cannot be denied. It has all been foretold.”

I sense a melancholy in them, and again I am confused. What is it they are not saying? They seem to understand something I do not.

“What is to come will not be easy, Isu. This human is just the beginning. Be strong. Be resolute. Do not be afraid to follow your instincts. It is important.”

Now I am even more confused. This should have been a simple meeting. I should already be buried in the flesh of the female whose body reacts to mine so naturally and willingly. She is all I can think about. She is beginning to become restless in my arms. She squirms and looks at the elders, as if she might understand them better than I do, but I know that’s not possible.

“Is there something you are trying to tell me, Elder?”

“There is nothing you can be told,” he replies. “The future is yet to be decided, but there is motion in the earth and in the sky. These storms bring us scraps from the human world. But those scraps are intended to feed, not to be hoarded. Beware hunger. Yours, hers, and the hunger of others. Go, Isu. Do what must be done.”

It’s not the blessing I expected, but I will take it.

* * *

Aspel

There has been a lot of talking in the language I find intoxicating, but finally Isu says what I surmise are farewells to the older of his kind and carries me from their chamber.

“You have been welcomed into the burrow,” he says. “Now I will take you to my home.”

Home. The farm is home. Wherever this is, is not home. This is a subterranean maze from which I will never escape. Panic begins to rise inside me as I feel him carry me deeper still through tunnels that occasionally flare with a strange ambient light only to plunge us into darkness at the very next step.

He knows the way, of course. What seems like a labyrinth to me is entirely familiar to him. He takes me through a door, heavy rock made to move beneath his massive palm, and then we are inside something inside something else. This is a place of layered darkness. I don’t think I have been rescued. I think I have been captured. If only I could muster concern without being overwhelmed by the heat coming from this creature who holds me and sets my blood aflame with lust.

He puts me down and lights a flame with a snap of his fingers, putting them to a red rock that sputters into life and casts a glow to let me see by.