The Vori’s Secret

A Mate Index Alien
Romance

S.J. Sanders

Prologue

Jenn slipped onto the trading
vessel with as little sound possible. The loaders were distracted, which worked
to her benefit. She had no idea where the starship would take her and at that
moment she didn’t care. All she needed to do was get off Agraadax, and far away
from the Agraak Extermination Unit. Regardless of its destination, she would be
sneaking off at the next planet.

She was well aware of just how
dangerous her situation was. She could end up literally anywhere, and the
universe was a very big place. There was a very good chance that she would end
up on a hostile planet filled with predatory native life determined to kill
her, but given what she was facing on Agraadax, that didn’t seem like too bad a
trade. After several miscarriages over the years, interrupted by periods of
recovery, her “mate” finally turned her into the breeding facility for termination.

It was only by the benevolence of
some higher power that a sympathetic female guard risked her own life to smuggled
Jenn out just hours before she was to be chemically injected with a substance
that would bring about instantaneous brain death. Dropped beside the trading
vessel, the guard had bid her good luck and hastened to return to her post,
leaving Jenn to determine her own fate. She could live with that. Her daddy was
an ex-Marine and survivalist. He taught all his children to be prepared to live
off the land in foreign and hostile environments. As long as Jen got off this
planet, she was good as gold. The fact that she didn’t have any credits or a
single friendly face to help her was unfortunate, but she knew that she didn’t
need to rely on such things to disappear.

When it came to her ability to
disappear she knew that there were other things going on in the Intergalactic
Union that could only work in her favor. Things that she’d heard by word of
mouth from the disgruntled conversation of Agraadax’s citizens. She had been
relieved to hear that the Intergalactic Council had discovered what the Agraak
had been up to and had been sending out task forces over the last several years
to inspect areas suspected of harboring humans. Unfortunately, she also knew
that because the Agraak kept the location of the breeding facility a carefully
guarded secret that there was little hope that the Intergalactic Council would
find it any time soon, if at all.

Jenn didn’t have time to wait
around to be found, but there was a chance that if she were lucky to escape
onto a planet that was a member of the Union that she could get a message out
to the ambassador. She could be rescued and returned to Earth. She certainly
had enough of aliens to last her a lifetime.

She felt a twinge of guilt that
she was leaving all the other women behind, but the way she saw it, at this
point, she didn’t have any choice. She couldn’t do anything for anyone else
until she got a message out to Earth’s representatives, and that couldn’t
happen until she was well away from Agraadax.

As a foul odor drifted to her,
she wished that she could be a bit more selective of the manner in which she
fled the planet. The smell of livestock was particularly heavy in the cargo
hold, as was the odor of various ice-packed fish, meat and eggs that added to
the unpleasantly fragrant aroma. Pinching her nose shut and tucking her mass of
red braids behind her shoulder, she ducked in between the bodies of some large
alien bovines and made her way to the back of the pen. She dug herself into the
reddish Agraadax straw and grimaced as a couple beasts ambled up to her, the
nauseating scent rolling off their massive yellow bodies, the singular eye each
beast sported blinking at her lazily as they nibbled at the offerings as their
strange webbed and clawed tipped segmented hooves stomped the ground between
her. More than one set of upper claws around the hocks came perilously close to
slicing her as they edged closer to her.

Jenn muttered darkly to herself
and settled in for a long flight. The lightweight Agraak dress that she’d worn
since being dragged to the breeding facility was dirty and far too thin for a
comfortable space flight. She only hoped she arrived someplace warm. She was
going to shit if it was an arctic and subarctic climate like the last planet was.

***

Jenn woke when the ship suddenly
lurched and the loading plank lowered with a dull thud. A muggy heat filled the
cargo hold, immediately sinking into her stiff muscles. She bit back a groan of
relief and tip-toed to the crates stacked near the entrance. Two voices drifted
in from outside the door.

“Fucking Vora. I can’t stand this
planet. I hope the boss changes our route with the Edoka pushing in on our routes.
Picking are slim now that we cannot legally trade within the Union, but the
Vori make my skin crawl,” one voice complained.

“Instructions are to just leave
the crates. The Vori at least deposit the money ahead of delivery so we can
just set it down and go. They won’t come out and get it until the weather gets
cooler around evening. I don’t want to be caught lingering when they arrive,”
said another.

“Yeah,” the first one returned.
“Vori don’t like taking any chance anyone might follow them to their nest. Gods
of the Death Plane, let’s get out of here.”

Jen crept out among the crates,
watching two Buto males count the crates a final time before disappearing into
the ship. She hunkered down between two of the largest as the engine started
and the ship lifted rapidly into the air. Once the Buto trading vessel was out
of sight, she slowly stood and took stock of her surroundings. At least she had
a name. She had no idea what planet Vora was, or who the Vori were the alien
traders spoke of, but given that she was standing in a small rocky clearing
surrounded at all sides by tall leafy trees and thick stalks of fronds not
unlike the ones that grew in the jungles on Earth, she knew at least that it
was a planet that supported diverse lifeforms, including a sentient one.
Whether that was a good or thing or not, time would tell.

Leisurely, she walked around the
perimeter of the clearing, looking for any sign of a trail through the thick
growth. She wasn’t equipped to hack her way through since she didn’t even have
so much as a pocketknife on her. At the edge of the clear a river cut through
the jungle, and she considered attempting to break open one of the crates to
see if it had anything useful to offer her for a floatation device. She was
inspecting one of the crates when she heard the brush crash around her, and threatening
sound of rattling as if coming from a giant copperhead.

Terror thrummed through her veins
as she looked for anything at all that she could possibly use to defend herself.
She didn’t want to go head long into the river, but at this point it was a far
more attractive option than confronting facing off with the mother of all
rattlesnakes. Still, she would feel a lot better if she was armed with something.
With nothing but a few fallen branches and a collection of miserable sticks,
Jenn’s heart sank as the sound came nearer. Her choices were quickly becoming
limited.

Fuck this.

With a shriek to bolster her
nerve, Jen leaped into the roaring river below.

Chapter 1

            A pained smile
twisted Eyuul’s lips as he watched his brother, Vadal, coiled up with two of his
hatchlings as his mate beside him holding a wildly shrieking female, while
Vadal’s nest-brother, Shaagra rounded up little Morpheus. Four healthy, albeit loud
and mischievous, hatchlings and a beautiful mate. Eyuul couldn’t help but to
envy his brother’s good fortune and feel the weight of sadness for the one
thing he wanted more than anything in the world but could not have.

            Oh, he
supposed some female would have accepted him if he’d been able to adjust the
mating norms of the Vori. He was of large size for a male, strong, patient, and
an excellent hunter, he was also aware of the fact that he was considered an
attractive male with his unique scale coloring that Reggie had likened to an
earthen metal called bronze. No, his downfall was the one thing that the female-dominated
Vori society considered unforgiveable: he was too possessive to be able to
successfully share a mate and form nest-brother bonds.

            For many
revolutions, his mother held high hopes in his youth that it was a phase that
he would eventually outgrow, but when it became more apparent that it was an
ingrained personality trait and his deepest desire that couldn’t be conditioned
out of him she’d fretted and despaired over him. Eventually, even Eyuul had
sank into depression, taking a post at a trading port far from his clan
territory where he wouldn’t have to face his mother’s disappointment and look
upon his clan increasing with matings and hatchlings that were painful for him
to witness.

            In retrospect,
he wished that he’d never left his home, then he would have been spared
heartache and the ruin of his reputation among his clan. Foolish enough to fall
in love with an offworlder, a hotblooded Edoka female, and to dream of forming
a mating bond with her, he’d given himself to her pleasure for months while she
was stationed on Vora. He hadn’t thought to be cautious or discreet about their
relationship and knew that gossip had traveled to his mother of his illicit
relationship.

When she commed him in a fury
that he had gone to the port to engage in sexual relationships with
offworlders, he had assured his mother that they would soon be joining as
mates. She’d been temporarily mollified, and he was granted a reprieve upon his
word that he would secure his mating soon. He had been in high spirits until
the day the female he loved simply disappeared.

Eyuul clenched his jaw as his
recalled how happy he was as he went to his female’s abode, a plan in place to
woo her and get her permission that night to share his mating bite. Yet, when
he arrived, he found all her possessions gone with only a note left for him
that she was called to return back to Edokora. The note gave no promise for the
future but had merely thanked him for keeping her company. The shame still
burned him that she’d considered their time together as nothing more than a
passing of time, a small pleasure that meant nothing when it had meant
everything to him.

When he confessed his shame to
his mother, the matriarch of his clan, she’d been furious and demanded his
immediate return to their clan territory. With nothing left to keep him at the
port, he’d acquiesced and went home where he found his tarnished reputation to
have proceeded him and grown far beyond his actual deed. Suddenly, he was not
only the unnatural one, but he was also the corrupted one who dallied with
alien females at a whim. It was only by his mother’s compassion that she allowed
him to remain as a hunter and retain some small measure of prestige among his
kin, though he was trusted with nothing further. It was a bitter thing for him
to swallow, even more so when Vadal returned from the Intergalactic Space
station, abroad further than any of their kind ever had been before, with his
own alien mate who not only returned his love but increased his nest with progeny.

It was worse though because his
brother, like everyone else, seemed to believe the rumors going about the clan
regarding him and had trusted him little with his mate. It had hurt more than
he would have liked, and more than he would admit. Like always, he covered his
pain with humor and played the flirt that everyone believed him to be. Reggie was
the only one who seemed to see past that.

Reggie’s eyes rested on him
sympathetically. “Eyuul, are you alright?”

He forced a nonchalant smile. “All
is well. I was just thinking to perhaps go out a bit further and see if I can
find any worthy prey to bring down.”

“Just not shoyla, huh?”

He laughed and shook his head. Despite
being a delicacy, Reggie had a strange aversion to the giant arboreal
arachnids. “Shoyla do not live at this elevation. I promise there will be no
shoyla upon the tables. At least none from my hands. I can’t speak for any
hunter who may have gone higher into the mountains,” he teased.

Reggie wrinkled her nose and
adjusted her hold on her daughter Miree, whose brilliant blue tail flashed with
ire and she attempted to wiggle out of her mother’s arms to join her brother,
Morpheus as he darted into the nixai bramble bordering the River Omlo. Shaagra
cursed and dived into the bushes after him as Eyuul picked up his spear resting
against the thick trunk of a tree.

Vadal’s red eyes fastened upon
him and they exchanged a polite nod before Eyuul slithered away from the small
grassy clearing, disappearing back into the jungle. As he followed the path of
the river, he allowed his mind to return to the subject of mating. Despite his
envy over his brother’s happiness, he could not bring himself even imagine that
their places were exchanged. The idea of even being in a nest with another male
was distasteful to him and made his scales shudder with revulsion.

As much as he wanted a mate like
Vadal had, he didn’t want the rest of it that came with typical Vori matings,
even if his people considered it selfish and terrible. In the end, he was
resigned to the knowledge that he would remain alone dwelling in his mother’s
nest.

Gritting his teeth together
against a wave of frustration, Eyuul wrapped his tail around the nearest tree
and stabbed his spear into the river with more force than was necessary, pulling
out a small fish. With his claws his pulled it off his blade, snapped off its
head and gutted it before swallowing it down. He frowned as a small movement in
the shallows of the river up ahead drew his attention. Concerned that it may be
some injured Vori or a beast, he hastened down to the bank where it was safe
enough to approach. There, he immediately came to a startled halt.

There, lying in the water was a
human!

A female!

His head snapped around, looking for any sign of where
she came from or if anyone might be looking for her. He hadn’t heard any news
of humans arriving on Vora, but he wouldn’t discount the possibility. She
couldn’t have materialized from the ether. Though he strained his eyes, all he
could see was the raging white foam of the water. His hearts stuttered. She
could very well be dead. The mass of red woven hair fell down her face obscured
her features from him, and he couldn’t say with any certainty whether or not
she was still among the living.

            Tentatively, he leaned
forward and pushed the thick mass of wet hair away from her face, looking upon
the sharply defined, beautiful deeply golden-brown features of the female. A
hard lump marred her brow where she doubtlessly had struck her head on a rock
or debris in the river. His eyes traveled down the length of her body to take
in her features. Her limbs were long and covered with a thin brilliant green cloth
that had become sheer from the water. Her dark nipples pebbled noticeably
through it, though he attempted to not disrespect her so much as to leer at her
lustfully while she was unconscious. Even more tentatively, he touched her
chest and felt the soft intake of breath and the beat of her heart.

The Mother blessed her—she lived!

            Shifting her weight into
his arms, he held her close to his body, enjoying the smell and taste of her on
his receptors when he flicked his tongue. He wanted her. She was delivered to
him, certainly the Mother of the Nest meant for her to be his to care for and
protect. He was certain that she would agree to be his mate just as Reggie welcomed
her males. She would care that he had no interest to share her with other
males.

Eyuul’s eyes narrowed on the loud commotion coming from
where his brother was at rest with his family. He didn’t want any of the clan
to know of her, not yet. The matriarch would seek to influence her, perhaps
even try to tempt her to join with another nest. Jealousy tightened in his
chest. It would flaunt all of Vori customs, but he refused to let his clan females
have access to her. He couldn’t let her go that easily.

A plan formed in his mind where he could keep her safe
and nurture her back to health. He would take her high into the mountains and
keep her secret from them all until the day that she either chose to leave on
her own volition or willingly pulled him into her mating embrace. Until then,
she’d be his secret, and Vora would keep it safe.

Tucking her against in his chest he moved with haste,
leaping from one tree across the river to another before dropping back to the
ground and making his way steadily through the jungle up the side of the
mountain. All the while he kept her chest against his so that he could feel the
measure of her heartbeat, and her face pressed against his neck where her
breath could gently fan his skin so that he’d know that she was well.

At a relentless pace he climbed higher in the mountains,
his tail whipping easily between the trees as he pushed himself. The female in
his arms stirred a time or two which has caused him to briefly halt his
progress, but other than furrow her brow with pain, she never wakened or even
so much as opened her eyes. He wondered absently if she would have the blue
colored eyes of his brother’s mate or another hue.

Adjusting his grip, he felt his body sway as his balance shifted
as his coils glided over the rocks that increasingly rose in his path the
higher up the mountain he went. The trees began to thin, leaving only the sparse
canopy which shoyla preferred for their making their webs. Despite the
potential danger that could spring upon him at any moment, he breathed easier
knowing that he was now high above his clan’s territory and far from his
matriarch’s oppressive, controlling reach. No doubt she would be very angry,
and likely no little worried, when he returned that night. He only hoped that
she would understand and forgive him when all was done.

It took some time for him to find the simple made hunters
nest that he’d carved out many revolutions ago as a young hunter. In his youth,
he would disappear for days in the mountains, enjoying the privacy that the
mountains afforded him. It was in a secluded spot that not even the most
relentless of his brother had ever been able to find. More than once since his
return to his clan’s territory he had considered disappearing to his sanctuary
and not returning. Always his sense of duty had prevented him and kept him
returning to his mother’s nest. Now, however, it was easy to decide to remain
in the mountains. Caring for the female was his prerogative.

Keeping an eye out for shoyla that might attempt to drop
on them, Eyuul pushed himself into the crevice where he found the door barring
the entrance of his private nest. The door resisted his effort to enter, having
been unused for a number of cycles, but finally it gave way with a loud
protesting creak. Draping the female over his shoulder, he dragged the long
length of his tail after his through the door and braced both arms against the
heavy wood to swing it shut once more.

The immediate darkness that descended was as unnerving as
it always was, a stark reminder that this was no true nest with all its
comforts and the technology. Instead there was only a simple oil lamp beside
the door that he quickly lit and carried with one hand while his other wrapped
around the female’s fleshly rear, holding her in place as he made his way
further into the darkness of the nest until he reached the small hearth. A
small bundle of wood already sat inside waiting to be lit below a long, narrow
event that not even the smallest shoyla could get through.

Laying the human in his coils, he turned his attention to
the wood and with a bit of kindling and the flame from the lamp, he quickly got
a small fire going, illuminating the rest of the small single-room hunter’s
nest. Thick dust covered everything, and the pile of simple hide pillows sat in
a brown lump in the center of the room. He scowled at the sight. It was hardly
worthy of a female. For a moment he had misgivings that perhaps he’d made the
wrong choice. His mother’s nest would have offered more comforts, even as it
would have been more restrictive toward any female within. He shook his head.
No, his hunter’s nest might not have all the comforts, but it would offer more
privacy as she returned to health and give her more freedom with your choices.

Thumping the pillows with his tail, he freshened them the
best he could before gently laying her upon them. His tail coiled around to
give her further support and comfort. Tucking a few tightly wound coils behind
her ear, he smiled to himself as he looked down at her. Her brow furrowed and
her eyes flickered before revealing dark greenish depths. She blinked groggily
as her eyes struggled to focus on him. He leaned forward, eager to introduce
himself but was utterly unprepared when her eyes widened and her lips parted to
let out an ear-piercing scream.





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