Page 5 of Beauty and the Alien Beast
At his words, I shuddered. The sickness was what all Gladiators feared. It was a fate worse than death. And if we could not find some way to fix the female shortage, I would find myself in that very situation much sooner than I was willing to admit.
I’d never witnessed the sickness, but I’d heard enough tales of it from my grandfather. When the void of not having asheleki—mate—could no longer be contained, it consumed a Gladiator from the inside out, forcing his Wulfaen—the inner beast—to take over, locking the Gladiator within his animal. At will, all males could shift forms—from Gladiator to Wulfaen and back—and prided themselves for having control over their Wulfaen. But when the sickness consumed them, the beast was in charge, sending both Gladiator and Wulfaen feral.
The elder of ethics stepped forward before saying, “Alpha, we still do not know why the sickness is attacking the younger males as opposed to the elders. But tensions are high within sectors one and two. That is why they voted for buying the earthling females from the Omers.”
“Elder,” I hissed, “I’ve made my opinion on this matter clear.”
Ethics replied, “Yes. You have. But it is our duty to inform you of the facts, whether you agree with the outcome or not.”
I waved my hand. “Proceed.”
Ethics continued. “According to the Omers, the female earthlings are sexually compatible with our males and are capable of bearing our pups. Everything that I’ve said has been confirmed by our medics, so this is fact.” He pursed his lips before finishing. “This is why sectors one and two would like to reconvene the council.”
I snapped, “Why?”
“They would like you to reconsider your vote,” he answered.
I shook my head. “They would have had better luck begging the alphas from sectors four and five to change their votes.”
The elder of ethics replied, “They did, but sectors four and five refused to change their stance. And since you were the deciding vote, sectors one and two are demanding that you see reason and side with them.”
The elder of logic interjected, “Our alpha is reasonable. They are not. What they are attempting to do is circumvent the council’s process.” He rubbed his chin. “The Council of Five was created by our ancestors to prevent such a thing from happening. Our law is resolute. Each alpha has a vote, and the consensus wins.”
Since that was blatant fact, none of us replied.
Many moons ago, our ancestors joined together under the leadership of five alphas—descendants of the royal Wulfaen Gladiator bloodline—who led all Gladiators into battle and freedom from the Omers.
In the wake of the war, the alphas returned to tribal ways and created five packs, each with their own alpha who ruled his own sector with absolute control and an iron fist. But not too long after, war and strife arose between the alphas.
Following centuries of bloodshed and death, the alphas decided to draw up a treaty that was satisfactory to each. As a result, the Council of Five was formed, made up of one alpha from each pack, who would meet—on neutral territory—to discuss politics, business, and other issues related to keeping the Wulfaen Gladiators in harmony. As the leader of one of the largest packs and sectors, I held one of the five seats on the council.
“Well, you can send word that my vote is unchanged,” I answered. “My decision is still no to buying earthlings from the Omers for mating and breeding.”
How far have we fallen as a society that we have let desperate straits push us into this state of moral compromise?
“I understand that one of my many duties as alpha is to ensure that my pack survives, but to condone slavery?” I arched a brow. “No! That I will never agree with.”
“I’ve made my opinion on this matter clear,” the elder of foresight said. He was the youngest and most muscular, with a trimmer, gold-hued beard and dark-purple eyes. “Relying on the Omers for females is foolish. Many solar cycles ago, we were once their slaves and fought a bloody battle to win our freedom. Now I believe the Omers’s offer to sell us the one thing that we need to survive is just another way to force us back into servitude.”
I nodded in agreement. It wasn’t long ago that all Gladiators were once the Omers’s property. The vile Omers treated us like wild animals, forcing us to remain in our beast form—the Wulfaen—fighting other alien races for the Omers’s entertainment, coins, and territory. Most of the Gladiators went feral because it was not good for us to remain in our beast form for too long, allowing our animal to take control of our mind. When we went feral, we were slaughtered like animals. But the most damning part of our enslavement was that the Omers used our females for fucking, their staffs ripping into our females, killing most. Those that survived became weak and sick, incurring a very slow and painful death.
“Alpha.” The elder of war held up his hand. “The truth of the matter is that Gladiators from all sectors—including ours—are restless. They need to find their one true mate… their sheleki.” He paused. “None of the nearby planets that we’ve visited have females who are capable of bearing our younglings. We’ve exhausted all logical solutions.”
This was true. Many Gladiators—including me—had visited nearby planets in search of our sheleki, to no avail. Most females that we’d encountered weren’t sexually compatible.
War continued. “It is unwise to ignore the fact that earthlings will remedy the sexual unease among the Gladiators. This could slow the spread of the mating sickness.”
I could attest to the hardship of not having a soft female of my own to care for and protect, but there was a limit to how far I’d go to attain my mate. I was among the many who believed that someday the gods would provide willing mates for all my fellow brethren. When that day came—and it would—Gladiators were ready to prove themselves worthy of claiming and mating our chosen female.
Despite the fact that none of the younger Gladiators—like me—had ever experienced rutting with a non-simulated female, we were armed with a wealth of knowledge on how to satisfy our mate. As a rite of passage, all males were sent to the nearby planet Jupiter to learn the art of pleasing our future female from the VRCMB—virtual reality celestial mating simulator. The fully interactive tech system taught us all the skills required to stimulate her sexual chamber while planting our seed in a manner that would eventually result in her belly becoming round with our pup.
“I’ve made my opinion clear,” I growled. “I will never agree or condone the act of forcing females to give us pleasure. Any sexual contact between the earthlings and us must be consensual.” I eyed each and every one of the elders. “We are proud warriors and do not need to resort to forcing our needs on females.”
Left to myself, I would have ridden into the complex and rescued every one of those females—earthlings and other races—after making the slavers pay for their wickedness with blood.
“I agree with Alpha,” the elder of logic said. “But we have a big problem. Thirty orbits have passed since a youngling was born to our people. Thirty.”
He spoke of me, the last Gladiator born, the son of an alpha elder from the royal bloodline. I had been born to a surrogate from donated ova and my father’s essence, and then I was taken back to my sector to be raised and trained in our ways.
