The Wanderers

I heard the rustling of grass behind me and spun on my heels, drawing my pistol, training the barrel on the closest wanderer. I was about to fire when I heard her voice for the very first time—the rhythmic meter of their language, the venomous lilt to it, the command; my head instinctively turned to her and I watched her rise to her feet, pointing harshly at the dark haired creatures who stood around us. They all stilled though their bodies remained tense; reluctantly, one of them nodded. It was the last thing I saw before something clipped the back of my head and everything grew black.

...

My head was killing me when I came to, almost as bad as the rest of my body. I struggled to force my eyes open, groaning out softly when I tried to move. It took a few attempts before I realized that my wrists were bound together, as were my legs. As realization came rushing in, I frantically looked around.

I was in some sort of hut, reminiscent of a teepee oddly enough. The mostly circular floor was at least a dozen feet across, the sides were made of interwoven branches that went straight up from the ground for about six feet before tapering into a peak, a small opening left at the pinnacle for venting air and smoke. Centered in the middle was a hole dug down into the ground, a smoldering fire offering some light.

I was laying on my side, my face pressed against the soft hide of some animal just like the dozens more that covered the ground. I glanced around until my eyes fell on Richie; he was lying on his back, his hands and feet bound. The hole in his chest was covered with a leaf. I couldn't tell if he was breathing or not.

"He is still alive," her flat yet sweetly lyrical voice drifted to my ears.

It took me a moment to locate her across the hut; the first thing I saw were her almost glowing green eyes. When I looked harder, I realized she was also bound. My brow furrowed and I forced my body up into a sitting position, "Why did they take you prisoner? I thought they came to free you?"

She snorted, ignoring my question, "You need to get free of your binds and return to your caravan. I have ensured your safety for the time being but the longer you wait the less I can guarantee that."

I didn't need to be told twice, I started tugging on the leg of my jeans, trying to free them from the ropes that wrapped around my ankles; I always kept a knife in my boot, just in case I ran into a situation where it would be needed. Like this one, for example. While I worked on it, I used the opportunity to glean whatever I could from the wanderer, "The caravan?"

Her eyes appraised me for a moment before she spoke, "They were not harmed; no doubt they have continued on their journey in your absence."

I nodded; it would have been smarter for them to stay put but we told Mr. Davidson to continue on until they reached the next town in about a week. I half wondered if the hunters were stupid enough to come for the female wanderer. Perhaps our charges would have asked them to search for us, though I highly doubted the hunters would make the effort.

I managed to pull my jeans free; slipping my finger tips into the inside of my boot, I fished out the long hunting knife sheathed there. I made quick work of sawing through the ropes. Once I was free, I rose to my feet and headed towards the door, peering out into the darkness of their camp. "Where are they?" I asked the wanderer, walking towards her. She looked at me curiously while I cut through her binds.

"They are hunting for their meal—why are you freeing me?"

"It was never my intention to let those hunters keep you bound. I assumed returning you to your own people would be the right thing to do but apparently they want you as a prisoner just as much." I could see the skepticism in her eyes; it was odd as I had never met an original wanderer who would be doubtful of my assistance, nor one that was fearful of me. Then again, I had never met a female wanderer.

She rubbed her wrists and glanced over at my son; I went to him next, kneeling while cutting through his binds. I tried my best to gently shake him awake but he wouldn't budge. I sank back to my heels, trying to figure a way to get the pair of us out of here. That is when she walked over, her lithe frame crouching down over Richie's body. She placed a gentle golden hand on his cheek and leaned forward, her forehead pressed against his. Her lips moved, sound coming out of them that might have been words but it was hard to tell as it didn't resemble any language I knew, nor theirs. She leaned forward and her lips brushed his, her kiss soft.

Richie gasped in a breath, his eyes flew open. She steadied him with her hand cradling his head, "Calm yourself, do not talk, do not fight it, you do not have much time before you will be asleep again."

He nodded, understanding whatever the hell she said; none the less, he winced and sat up, his eyes quickly taking in the surroundings before meeting mine, "We should get out of here."

"I second that," I replied. I helped him to his feet, slipping my arm around his back to prop him up. We hobbled to the entrance, the wanderer gathered up some things before following us.

Outside it was dark; we were near a cluster of pathetic looking trees, several other huts arranged in a small village of sorts. The ground was loamy, almost sandy and made our progress difficult as we slowly made our way northwest. I figured it was the safest bet, eventually we should encounter something that was familiar to us, having traveled that same route hundreds of times before with different caravans.

I assumed the wanderer would leave us but she did not, instead she followed behind, her keen eyes and ears assessing the wilderness around us. We made progress for almost two hours before Richie started wavering. I saw it in his face, the pain was getting to him and whatever she had done was wearing off. I made a quick survey; we must have been near a river because the trees had leaves on them, the grass seemed softer and darker. In the distance I saw a tall ridge with a narrow black hole—I made for it, hoping beyond belief that it was a cave of some sort. My hunch was proven correct; the entrance wasn't very wide at all, smaller than an actual door but the cavern on the inside was the size of a room, enough to fit the three of us in there laying down and still have some space.

I barely managed to get Richie on the ground before he blacked out again. The full moon glowed through the entrance, illuminating the cave in a soft white light but even still, Richie looked more pale than usual. I sat near him, my back resting against the stone wall; I had no fucking clue what to do. If we were in a city no doubt he could be saved, maybe if we were back at the caravan and there was an experienced doctor and a field kit, he could be kept alive long enough to reach the next town but out here? Out here, he was a dead man. We had spent centuries together, more than any father and son but that didn't ease the sorrow of knowing I would watch my boy die.

I watched with dull eyes as the wanderer crouched down beside him; she peeled back the leaves before sighing and discarding them. There was a hesitation in her movements as if she were weighing her options; once she had decided, her hand drifted down to his belt buckle. When she began to undo his pants, I startled.

"What are you doing?" I snipped, getting ready to push her off of him.

Her glowing eyes whipped up to mind and she stilled her movements, "He will die before the sun rises if I do nothing."

"I don't see how anything down there could help you fix him."

Snorting, she said, "Your kind knows nothing of us." When I narrowed my eyes at her, she withdrew her hand and glared back at me, "I do not offer this lightly—to be bound together is a sacred act—but this is the only way he will live."

"You're going to have to give me a little more than that," I spit out, "it seems like every time your kind fucks one of us nothing good comes of it."

I saw a flicker of a smirk on her lips, "Fair enough. I am the first female wanderer you have met, am I not?"

"Yes. I've seen quite a few of you but all men."

"Hmm," she hummed, "that would be because there are not many women. One woman for every hundred men of our kind. Men are bound to a particular woman." She paused; I could see her thinking, trying to decide what was the right quantity of information to give me. "There is no weapon that can kill me, nor any other woman wanderer. Our bodies are resilient and take less damage and we heal whatever something manages to wound us. The men who were bound to me shared my abilities through our bond."

I raised my eyebrow skeptically, "I've seen quite a few of the original wanderers die. You are not immortal."

She chuckled softly, "The wanderers your kind managed to kill were men we cut our bonds with. We knew of your kind through our interactions with other species; they had all warned us against making contact with the humans. I am not sure if it was hubris or stupidity that we did not listen; we knew that your species was dominated by males so it seemed the wise choice to send men for the negotiating. Had any of us known that your women could not control their desires or fertility we would have forbade our men from contact with them." She waved her hand through the air, dismissing the topic as if it were something she argued many times before, "After we became stranded here, some of the men chose to remain idle and take in human women instead of searching for the rest of the wanderers. Those men were tracked down and bonds were cut. Breaking a bond is a death sentence for a male, the lowest status that could be inflicted upon one of our kind. They lose the abilities we shared with them and are rendered mortal. That is why they died."

My eyes dropped down from her to Richie, "So you want to enslave him to save his life?"

"Slavery is not a notion we have," she said sharply, "while a bond between a female wanderer and her men is different from any relationship you could fathom, it is perhaps more akin to a marriage, just far more permanent."

Richie's chest was barely rising and falling. It was a tough choice, one he had no say in. Do I take her assistance? Do I let my son get fucked, bonded to an alien in order to save his life? He had a wife, though all of his kids were long grown and dead since they were born after Day One. Would he understand my choice, I wondered. I didn't know if it was the right decision but I knew that I couldn't watch my boy die—it was supposed to be the other way around. I looked up into her glowing green eyes, her uncanny beautiful exotic face. Drawing in a deep breath, I nodded.

She had no reservations about me watching because she wasted no time, her hands undoing his jeans, long narrow golden fingers sliding down his briefs to free his cock. I should have looked away; part of me is embarrassed that I didn't but the display was so highly emotional and erotic that unless I left the cave my eyes would have been drawn back to her.

Using both hands, she kneaded his cock until it responded naturally to her touch, firming up and rising into a thick pole, much like mine was doing of its own accord in my pants. The wanderer rose to her feet and discarded the duster; underneath she wore a loose fitting, sleeveless, cropped top made of leather and a leather pants that covered her boots. There was a singed hole in her top, on her right side just above her breast, from where the hunter shot's blasted through her. There should have been a gaping hole to the other side but instead her body had healed itself, the fresh skin covering the wound was a bright and shiny gold, unlike the rest of her. She kicked her boots off, sliding out of the pants and top until she was stark naked.

Even in the dim moonlight, her golden skin shimmered with an ethereal quality to it, her large plush breasts with pert nipples swayed while she positioned herself, straddling my son. She slowly crouched down to her knees, lining up his cock with her hairless hole before she sank down on him. The wanderer exhaled a sharp breath, her eyes drifting close while she savored the feeling of being filled with a cock. Carefully she rested her hands on Richie's sternum before her hips and ass started undulating in a tantalizing, foreign rhythm. My eyes were glued to her beautiful form; don't get me wrong, I was turned on but watching her gyrations made me awestruck. Her movements were so different from any human woman, a rolling sway of her hips rocking over him instead of bouncing up and down like a five credit whore.

She closed her eyes, her chin drifted down to her chest; her breathing quickened, much as Richie's did. His head shook slightly from side to side, his unconscious mind forcing his body to respond to her touch as a soft, low groan escaped his lips. The wanderer purred, her rhythm speeding up; she raised her right hand off of his chest and held her palm up to her forehead. When she opened her mouth, the sound sent a chill down my spine and made me shift, uncomfortably aroused—her voice was breathy, airy, her pleasure clear though that is as much as I could glean from it because I didn't understand the noises she made. At first I thought it was a moan but there was a meter to it, syllables and intonation that hinted at it being a language of some sort.

Her hand dropped from her forehead down to her sternum as her head drifted backwards while she moaned the words out to the ceiling. I saw Richie's body start to tense up and I knew he was getting close. The bright glow drew my attention back to her, though; slowly, she started pulling her hand away from her body and as she did she drew a swirling, golden green light from herself, conical in shape extending from her palm into her chest. Once the tip of it cleared her skin, she held it up right and forced her face forward, eyes locked on my son.

The wanderer turned her hand upside down, pointing the peak of the light at Richie's heart; she never stopped speaking, never stopped moving, not even once. Slowly, she pushed the light into his chest until her palm rested flush with his skin. She leaned forward and brushed her lips against his before her entire body tensed and she halted all movement; a soft mewl came from her mouth while a shudder rippled down her body. Richie moaned out, his head pressing backwards into the dirt of the cave while he thrust up into the golden woman above him.

She remained like that for quite a while, her eyes closed, her forehead pressed against his, her body covering Richie's. My own heart was racing at the erotic, sensual display I had just seen; I needed to adjust myself as it was getting painful but I didn't dare move, too afraid I'd mess up the moment. When she finally sat back and drew in a deep breath, my eyes were immediately drawn to the gory wound on her left chest.

Her flesh was gone, burned away, shiny golden bones visible through the wound. When I looked down at Richie, the damage to his chest was gone, fresh skin covering the hole. Somehow, in the process of bonding with my son, the wanderer had taken his injury.

I was too shocked to speak; I thought about thanking her but it seemed inadequate. She eased herself off of Richie, carefully dressing him before drawing up to her full height, still naked; her bright green eyes caught and held mine. She looked me over for a bit before she said, "Your son is healed but his body does not understand it quite yet; he will still be weak for a day or two but he has no pain. When he wakes, make sure he eats." She pointed to the bag and canteen she had grabbed from the hunt.

I watched as she turned and walked towards the entrance, "Where are you going?" My voice was soft but a little more urgent than I had intended.

She stopped, turning her head to speak over her shoulder, "I will come back, if that is what you are concerned about. I am going to bathe though."

Before any other words were exchanged, she disappeared into the night. I sat there in the silence of the cavern, stunned at what I had just seen. As Richie started shifting and his eyes opened, it occurred to me that I never mentioned to her that he was my son.

I helped him into a sitting position so that his back was propped up against the cave wall. I held the canteen up to his lips, getting some water in him before I took some for myself. I was digging through the bag, pulling out a strip of dried meat when he spoke.

"I am not sure I would have agreed to being bonded to the wanderer," he said softly. When my eyes darted to him, he continued, "But I understand why you did it. Thank you, father."

I nodded awkwardly, breaking off a chunk of the meat and handing it to him. He brought it up to his lips and tore a piece off, chewing slowly. I shifted so that I was sitting beside him, thankful my erection had decided to retreat. "What is it like?"

He thought on it for a moment, "I'm not sure I can describe it. I know I was out cold but I remember every moment of it, how it felt. She is...a part of me, now. I can't talk to her or hear her thoughts or anything, but I feel her existence, I know she is out there somewhere, I feel the resilience of her body, I know things that I shouldn't know." Richie looked down and touched the skin through the singed hole of his shirt, "Like I know anytime I take a wound it will not damage me. It will damage her."

We ate the meat in a shocked silence; my mind immediately went to the government facilities that were holding the captured wanderers. How many men were still bound to women? How many were being tortured, day after day as humans tried to find a way to kill them, not knowing that all they were doing was inflicting pain and suffering on an unsuspecting woman?

It seemed like a long time before the wanderer came back; her matte gold body glowed in the moonlight as she walked into the cave, her waist long wavy hair was damp and clung to her skin. She dressed without speaking before sitting down opposite of my son and I. I passed her the canteen. Richie asked after she drank, "May I know your name?"

"Vega," she said with a frown, "at least that is the closest estimation in your Earthen languages to my actual name."

"How many men are still bonded to you?" I asked. Richie looked at me curiously, not entirely knowing what I was talking about since he was passed out for the conversation.

"A dozen," she said, "thirteen now though, if we include your son."

Before he could ask what was on his mind, I cut him off, "How many of those are being held by the government?"

Her face was devoid of emotion but her eyes held the truth of the constant suffering she was subjected to, "Seven."

I had to give it to the kid, he was just as perceptive as his old man; the next question came from him, "You let the hunters catch you? So you could get to your men?"

Her gaze drifted off of us, eyes looking over nothing in particular through the darkness of the cave. She didn't speak right away but eventually she determined that we were smarter than the average human male she had interacted with, "Yes. I know the things they have been subjected to by your rulers. Every woman that has been captured and taken to the facilities did so with intent so that they could either cut the bond with their men or free them. It is not something your government advertises but each woman wanderer has escaped her imprisonment."

I rubbed my face in exasperation, "Fuck, humans are so stupid."

"Yes, they are," Vega affirmed. "It is a wonder that your species has existed this long without destroying the entire planet." She waved her hand through the air, "That, however, is your problem not mine. Once I free the last remaining wanderers in captivity, we will decide what is to be done with the hybrids. Then we will leave and continue on our way, though it will take us centuries to repopulate our numbers. We will be much more cautious in future interactions with aliens."