Spirited Away: an Alien Erotic Romance

Assailed: Chapter Four -Burdens

BURDENS

Shanti rested her head against Hsing’s chest. Her body felt exhausted. She thought she heard the sound of two heart beats. Then she thought she felt two beats on different sides of her face.

“Yes, I have two hearts.” Hsing wrapped his arms around her and the world fell away from them.

“Is that what makes your kind go crazy? Because you love twice as hard?” When Shanti heard his sharp inhale she wanted to take the words back as soon as she said them.

“The process of circulating liquid through the body is different from circulating pure energy. Love is a concept in the mind, not the circulatory system.”

It was an explanation she would’ve given only a few days ago. Love wasn’t real. It was made up. But that was before she’d met Chen and he’d burned himself into her single heart, made it beat twice as fast whenever he was near. Chen loved her and she knew that was real. She knew it in her mind, her body, her soul. And she felt the same way about him.

Hsing didn’t love her, he tolerated her. But that was okay. She enjoyed the way he tolerated her. And, if she was honest with herself, his pushing and prodding her to walk her talk was making a difference in her. Both of them were.

Shanti looked away from the male that looked so much like the one who loved her, the one she loved in return. She looked away from Hsing, but she didn’t let him go. She let Hsing be her strength, her anchor. She knew that, although he didn’t love her, he would never let anything happen to her, never let any harm befall her.

It was barely a breath before they were on the heliopad and beaming up. Shanti looked down to see the Earth falling away from her, out of her reach. She felt something feather-light running down the side of her face. She assumed it was a tear from her worries over Chen. But it wasn’t. It was a hand. Hsing’s hand. The gentleness of the movement caught her completely off guard. Her heart stuttered, sounding as though there were two organs inside.

“I will bring him home to you, little one.”

Shanti turned her head into the cradle of Hsing’s large hand, and wonder of wonders, he let her. He guided her head back to his beating hearts and allowed her to rest there.

A sense of safety, security washed over her.

Shanti had been fiercely independent her entire life. She’d never allowed herself to lean on anyone. But now, she allowed all of her weight to rest on the strong post of Hsing.

Hsing’s arms tightened around her. Shanti felt herself lifted off the ground. They were still moving, not up but forward. And it was no longer the whooshing stream of air sounding in her ears from the heliopad. She heard words, shouts really. They were in the lyrical tongue of the Eloheem, but somehow she understood every one of them.

“Pakua, follow these coordinates. It appears their ship was stationed in the western hemisphere of the planet.”

Shanti looked up to see the dark purple Eloh, Pakuua, nod and punch in coordinates on the command center. There were other Eloheem around her, including Niao who looked at her with wide, teary eyes.

“I’m so sorry, Shanti,” the little boy said into her mind.

Shanti tried to step away from Hsing, but he held her firm. He peered down into her face, searching her eyes. Shanti opened her mouth to speak, to tell him that she was okay, that she just wanted to go to Niao and comfort him.

Before she could open her mouth, Hsing nodded. With a squeeze of her hand, followed by a fleeting brush of her temple, he released her. He walked past her, barking urgent orders. Shanti stood still for a moment. Her legs felt wobbly without him.