Hale: Love Me Harder - Alien Paranormal Romance (15 page)

“Are we getting out of here?”

“Not yet. We are going to visit the people of this planet. The idea is to get us off the beach while locking the tainted one in here.”

“Won’t that just aggravate him more?”

“It won’t matter. He was one of the scientist who raised us until he was removed because of the way he treated us when we were young. Somewhere along the way he introduced created DNA into his system and changed enough to have some of the strength and abilities of the Created. His being here proves that the small amount of sanity he had is no longer in his possession.”

“I’ll miss the beach.”

“We’ll come back again when it’s safe.”

He led her over to the edge of the beach where the sand disappeared and the surface was entirely smooth.

“Hale, what’s glittering off in the distance?”

“Don’t look over there, Tori. It can drive you crazy with lust for material things.”

“What?”

“This planet works on every desire, Tori. It could be the perfect pleasure planet if the inhabitants were willing to open it up. The planet has no mind of its own. It doesn’t differentiate between positive desires and negative desires.”

She turned her head to look at him. “So this place could become someone’s dream or nightmare.”

“Yes. The inhabitants here are not affected, but humanoids are.”

“Ok. What do we do now?”

A loud angry roar rent the air. She turned her head to see a monster standing over the spot where they had been sleeping.

“Hale is that…” She gulped looking at the thing coming their way.

There was none of the beauty she associated with Hale. It had fangs that hung down with saliva dripping from its mouth. His eyes were large and yellow.

“What happened to him?”

“Nicolas is working on that answer.”

“More importantly why are we still standing here?”

“It’s not time yet, Tori. Trust me.”

As the monster got closer it began to waver around the edges as it shrunk in size. A male around 5’8 emerged. He had yellow eyes with a bald head and a small, weak appearance.

“Hale, I thought I would miss you.” He turned his head to acknowledge Tori. “Ah, this must be your mate. So glad to finally meet you.”

She shivered as his eyes raked her from head to toe. That cold feeling she had back in the cave came back making her shiver.

“Not talkative is she? Hale would you like to hand her over now? It would be easier for both of you this way.”

“Why did you do it? Why did you come after us? We stayed far away from you, making sure to never bother you.”

“Did you really think that would be enough? Your very existence brothers me. You and all of your kind were meant to be monsters, killing machines that we, the scientists, could control. When your mission was done, when our planet was safe, then we would revel in the joy of killing each one of you. After we took over the known galaxies of course.”

She backed up behind Hale. This monster was insane; the spark of sheer hatred in his eyes had her wanting to make a run for it. Stiffening her body she allowed Hale to shield her.

“What went wrong with your grand plan?”

“We were tricked. We went after a being we thought was unintelligent. Turned out she was a shape shifter from a race which had not been seen in a millennia. How were we to know who she was? She sacrificed herself to us giving us plenty of female DNA to work with. Such complex DNA, I could have played with it all day long.”

For a minute the spark of insanity was replaced with the joy of experimentation.

“We created many versions of you in the early days of our experiments each one failed. The female DNA didn’t seem to be compatible with the Male’s. Each Created born was a problem in some way. Then she came on board. My beautiful fragile female. She convinced us to look for a different type of animal since the ones we were using were not compatible.”

Hale looked at him, never uttering a word.

“We found several specimens we thought would be controllable. We either hunted them or defeated them in battle. How were we to know they sacrificed their lives in a belief that the Created would stop the war before it began? We spent so many years on our own planet we didn’t believe there were races out there who had gifts that could not be seen. I saw the error in our thought patterns too late, by then the Created were being hailed as the savior of our world.”

“But you didn’t want a savior. You wanted a monster capable of making the galaxy quake in fear. You wanted to rule what was un-rulable,” Hale replied.

“Yes. I wanted it all. I wanted her and the keys to every planet. You, the Created, took that from me.”

“Why us? You could have gone after any family of Created why us?”

“There were only two groups I wanted. I wanted the ones who thought to take everything from me. The male DNA used in the six of you and the DNA used in Dante and his group.”

“Nicolas shared the memories of that male with us with. One of our fathers sacrificed himself to stop the galaxy wide war you planned.”

“I simply changed my plans, now I will own the earth using it as my seat of power. Enough idle chit chat. Hand over the female or she will suffer.”

“No.”

The tainted one stepped back, his form changing, growing. Hale whispered in Tori’s ear before pushing her away. His body changed growing large and strong.

The tainted ran at Hale using his body like a battering ram knocking into him. Hale fell and rolled missing the downward swipe of those deadly claws.

He jumped back to his feet moving in on his target. With a swipe of his hand he caught the tainted’s face leaving deep gouges in his cheek. Turning to the left, he saw the shimmer he was waiting for. He broke off the fight and began to run, slowing down as he passed Tori.

Tori fought down the nausea she felt and jumped at Hale when he passed her. She aimed for his back. One of his arms came around her helping to secure her there as he ran for what looked like a shimmer caused by the heat. It got smaller the closer they got. They would miss the door and be trapped on the beach with the tainted.

Hale gave a powerful leap jumping through the shrinking mirage just in time. The strangled yell of outrage followed them in.

“We made it.” A sigh escaped her lips.

She looked around letting a gasp of wonder escape. It was like the best of the past exploded into the future. There was a large perimeter of trees around what had to be a city designed as a village. The buildings were tall and sophisticated. They reminded her of the pictures she’d seen of futuristic cities.

“This world is amazing.”

There were inhabitants going from place to place. None of them were exactly humanoid. They all stood on two feet, except the children. They were allowed to crawl even in the busy streets. No one seemed to care and all the adults seemed to watch out for them.

All the traffic from vehicles was over head, yet the air seemed fresh and the inhabitants on the ground weren’t in any danger.

“How could the scientists have done this to such a sophisticated race of beings?”

“Greed doesn’t care who it hurts in the process of accumulating what it wants.”

Tori followed Hale as he crossed the streets making his way to the outer edges of the city. Slowly the beautiful buildings and the throng of beings gave way. There were more flowers and plants the further away they got. The homes seemed to grow further apart and the beauty of the countryside became more compelling.

Hale stopped as a male came into view. He was tall, maybe seven foot. Tori compared him to Hale’s height. He had the same platinum hair color as Hale, but his eyes were emerald green.

“Who is he?”

“I am his direct descendant. He is one of my fathers.”

The male bent over two small females letting them swing on one of his arms.

“The scientists killed him? Took him away from his family so they could make the Created?”

“That happens in war, Tori.”

“He looks so happy.” The young females were squealing as they climbed over him.

A beautiful female joined him in the yard. She had wide clear eyes that were filled with sadness.

“You are sad for no reason. We still have much time to be together.”

“The years pass much too quickly. Go get ready for lunch girls.”

They ran into the house with cries of yes momma on their lips.

He walked over to her and took her in his arms. “I became a male the day I met you. I was finally worthy enough to have a family. I would and will protect you and our children any way I can. If we allow them to create a race that knows nothing but war, we are all doomed. If I can protect you and them shouldn’t I? Should we all perish simply because I want one more day with my female? The one who owns my heart?”

“You make it sound so simple. Like I should want to clap my hands and send you off to die, but I know better. Nothing’s that simple and my heart doesn’t care, it only longs for you.”

“Forever, I will love you. One day when you meet our son pass this charge onto him. I gave up my life to save my family and my galaxy. I expect no less of him. He is to take care of you and his sisters. I am sure he will do me proud.”

Hale reached out and took Tori’s hand leading her away. “It’s time to go.”

“What did he mean he was finally worthy?”

“My people believe that when a male is blessed to meet his mate that is when he is finally mature enough to be called a male. He becomes worthy to protect the most precious thing we have. One of our females. Then when they create offspring both the male and female are held in an elevated state, if they create female offspring…well females are held in high esteem here.”

“What did you think when you met me?”

“That I am finally worthy.”

Chapter Nineteen

She woke up in her body and looked around the room. Nothing had changed. How long had she been out? It felt like a day or two. Her stomach was talking to her so it had to be more than a few minutes.

“How long were we there, Hale?”

“Six hours.”

“That was an amazing experience, to be able to see an alien culture, not just see it but be in the midst of it. Does it make you mad when you go back to visit these memories? Hard to believe they happened so long ago, they felt so real.”

“I find myself wanting to ask why. I wouldn’t be here without them, but why would you give up your family, your life just to make sure I was born. I don’t know about the others but I ask that question getting no closer to the answer.”

“When your father told his mate to tell his son about him, do you think he was talking about you?”

“I do. One day I will find her and my sisters and I will make sure they are taken care off.”

“One day you will leave.” No matter how she tried she couldn’t say it with gladness. Hale was getting to her making her want more than she originally planned for in her life.

He had brought her adventures on an alien planet. Long slow sessions of love and hard fast rounds of sex that made her blush thinking about them. She didn’t want him to leave. Hale leaving the planet seemed so final. It wasn’t like her just planning to up and hit Florida or Hawaii. Being sad about something that hadn’t happened didn’t make sense, but it didn’t change her feelings.

She opened her mouth to tell him to stay when her belly made an unfortunate loud rumbling noise.

“You must have worked up an appetite with our adventure. I bet I know a place you will love.” His slow smile made her heart trip.

“Oh, where’s that?”

“It’s a surprise. Do you want to change first?”

Tori looked down, her dress looked prefect, but she had been sitting in it for six hours. Actually she should be more worried about her body. She stood on stiff legs trying to get the kinks out of her back.

“I think the next time we do this we should lie down instead of sitting.”

Hale stared at her giving her the biggest smile as she realized what she said. She made it sound like she was planning to be around for a while and wasn’t she planning just that? Shaking out her legs, she jogged to the stairs allowing her body to wake up.

A shower and a change of clothes later she was sitting next to Hale in a convertible with the top down. She still had no idea where he was taking her.

“How many cars do you have? Every time I turn around you pull out another vehicle.”

“I have a lot. We all have more cars than we need. Not just my brothers, but Dante and his brothers also. On our planet we walked or ran everywhere unless the scientist took us. When we came here we were disappointed that there were no hover vehicles, then we realized you used cars for transportation.

Imagine or surprise when we realized that anyone over a certain age could have one as long as they had the money to purchase it. Then we looked into ways to make money. Once we decided it wouldn’t be too hard to earn it, we started working. Before long we had more than enough to buy each of us a vehicle, but none of us had a license.”

Tori laughed, “So are you telling me you walked into a car dealership flushed with money and when they asked to see your license you just gave them a blank look?”

“Something like that. They refused to sell us a car and we came in for six of them. I believe that was the first time I have ever seen Aran frustrated with the earth laws. Show me what this license is, Aran said to the sales man who was noticeably shaking from his soft voice. The one he gets when he his thinking of how to eliminate an opponent.

With clumsy hands the sales man reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. He showed us his license. How do we get one, Aran asked? The man schooled us like we were children. Then Aran turned and walked away saying we would be back to the guy. I actually felt sorry for that male.”

“Don’t stop there.” Hale had stopped talking. “I want to know what happened next.”

“They didn’t have driving schools back then. We came long before they cropped up. Aran went out and found someone with a car, his name was Thomas, and paid him to give us lessons. We can pilot a space craft and maneuver a hover vehicle, but driving a car proved to be a challenge. It was a good thing the male chose a large open field to teach us in. Every day we spent a little time learning what was needed. We took Thomas’s car apart more than once. It ran better than anything on the road by the time we were finished with it.