ONE
“So you’re saying one of your ships crashed on Earth?” Sylvan sat forward in his chair, a frown of concern creasing his forehead.
“I am afraid so.” Rarev, the Chief Commander of the Monstrum Kindred was sitting across from him. He had called Sylvan on the viewscreen an hour earlier to tell him that he had “grave news”—so grave, apparently, that it must be discussed only in person. Accordingly, Rarev had flown from the Monstrum Mother Ship to the Kindred Mother Ship and the two males were now sequestered in Sylvan’s office with a privacy seal across the door.
The Monstrum were Kindred who had come from another Universe when rifts had opened in the Multiverse. Their own “‘verse,” as they called it, had been overrun by the ravenous Darklings—evil creatures who devoured everything in their path. And so the Goddess, who cared for all her children, no matter what realm they lived in, had sent them to the Kindred who were orbiting Earth.
Like all Kindred, the Monstrum were 95% male and since they had no females of their own left, they naturally wished to bond with females that were native to their new universe—specifically, Earth.
At first the humans had problems with the idea of Monstrum warriors calling brides from Earth. Mostly because the Monstrum all had some sort of animalistic characteristics. Some looked like satyrs from Earth mythology with a ram’s horn and hooves but a human torso and face. Others, like Rarev himself, looked even more beast-like.
Rarev was a Felinus Monstrum and he looked a bit like a Lion. His body was covered in short, velvety fur and his facial features were distinctly leonine with a rich golden mane around his head. He didn’t have a tail and his hands and feet looked human, but he did have claws which popped out of his knuckles and his fangs were extremely sharp. All in all, he looked like someone had taken a huge Kindred warrior and a lion and mixed them together.
The people of Earth had been incensed at the idea of “animals” calling human brides, even though the Monstrum were completely sentient. They refused to bend, even though the Monstrum had saved them from the Darklings when they attacked. It had seemed like an impossible situation until Rarev had gotten himself bonded to Minister Emilia Oxley—a prominent politician from the UK.
Minister Oxley had been in the mid-period of her life where females lose their fertility—what the humans called “menopause”—but the Monstrum had a whole different word for it. They called it the “Second Mating Season” or the “Second Heat.” That was because Felinus Monstrum were able to regenerate any older woman they bonded with, causing her body to go backward in the aging process, becoming anywhere from fifteen to twenty-five years younger.
Once it became known that Felinus Monstrum were able to regenerate their mates, the humans suddenly looked much more kindly on them. The females did, at least, Sylvan thought dryly. There were still mobs of angry human males who didn’t want the Monstrum calling brides from Earth, but at the moment, having a Monstrum husband had become something of a fashion statement. Older females in the acting and entertainment industry especially, loved to be seen on the arm of a Monstrum when they went to high profile events.
Of course, this didn’t mean that the Monstrum were only calling famous brides. But the ones who had called high-profile human females like Rarev himself, had paved the way for their brethren to call brides from all across the human spectrum. It had also considerably eased the tensions between the Kindred and the humans. Except for the pockets of male resistors, who swore vengeance and declared that a human female being mated to a Monstrum was a form a bestiality, there was peace between all three races—the humans, the Kindred, and the Monstrum.
So when Rarev had called and said he had “grave news,” it was fairly distressing. Things were just settling down and they had the weapons to repel another Darkling attack—everyone was at peace. Sylvan didn’t want anything to disrupt the status quo. But it seemed he had little choice—at least according to Rarev.
“I’m afraid one of our ships crashed in the mountains of a place on Earth called ‘The United States,’” the Monstrum Commander told him.
Sylvan shook his head.
“You’ll have to be more specific—there are several mountain ranges in that country. The Rockies? The Smokies? The High Sierras?”
“The Blue Ridge,” Rarev clarified, after consulting his personal communications device for the details. “Our ship crashed there, in the province called ‘Virginia.’”
“They call their provinces ‘states,’” Sylvan explained. “My own wife is from the state called ‘Florida.’ It is an area famous for having absurd and insane things happen on an almost daily basis.”
“Is that right?” Rarev raised his brows in surprise. “In that case, it’s a pity the ship didn’t crash there. Because I’m very much afraid some bizarre things might come of this accident—if we don’t act quickly to head them off.”