When Souls Collide, Chapter 8, Part 2

Good morning all. Back to our scheduled posts. It's been a crazy week, full of ups and downs. Life truly is a roller coaster and I don't think I would have it any other way. I think sometimes it's the downs that help us to truly appreciate the good things that come our way.

Here's to the ride up. Hang on and enjoy it.

All rights are the intellectual property of the author. No part may be copied or reproduced without the permission of the author.


***Warning. The following story contains erotic elements, explicit language and violence. Read at your own risk.***

Tesza sucked in a deep breath and stared at the closed door. The longer she stayed here the bigger the chance she’d betray the others. Sooner or later she’d slip up and give him information. Her control was weak. It took all the energy she had to give him that cold, hard look that sent him from the room in a rage. Even now her body craved his arms wrapped around her. She could still taste him on her lips and feel the fire in her veins his touch ignited.


She had to escape. Coming here had been wrong. She endangered her people. They should have killed her instead of driving her out. She couldn’t do what they asked. Being held captive was torture. He was right about one thing. It was painful. She couldn’t touch him. She needed to keep her distance.

Tesza pushed to her feet, continuing to stare at the door. It slid open and Ursus stood in the doorway. His eyes pinned her in place. Her heart jumped and she cried out, sliding her hand over her breast. Inside she quaked like a land-shake.

“Gods, I can’t take it.” He strode forward and yanked her into his arms. His mouth possessed hers, taking her breath and soul. Nobody devoured her the way Ursus did. When he kissed her, he owned her, consumed her. Flames licked through her blood and her body buzzed with the energy from his touch.

He scooped her into his arms and carried her to the bed. Tesza only realized then that she was on her back as he pressed against her body. His knee slid between her thighs, prying her legs apart. Tesza tore her mouth away. “No. You don’t know what you’re doing.”

“I’m doing what I was born to do. Loving you.”

“We can’t. You don’t understand.” Tesza pushed on his shoulders.

“Fate keeps bringing us together. Give in to it and see where it takes us.” His breath washed over her ear. Chills erupted across her skin. “All I know is that I need you. Please, say yes.”

“You’ll die if you do this.”

“I’ll die if I don’t.” Ursus hand slid under her blouse and stroked her breast.

Tesza didn’t know how to tell him. She had a virus. It was harmless to her people, but to the Kori, deadly. Transmitted by sexual contact, he’d be immediately infected if this went any further. She was a virgin, sex with her would make her bleed; infect him as it had been planned from the time she was a child. He was lucky the contact with her blood before hadn’t infected him. It would never happen twice. The next time, he’d die. Thousands would die.

It had been her people’s last defense. When they were invaded, women were raped. The plague was released into the Kori military populations, annihilating them. When the next wave of ships arrived a month later, they found every Kori troop on the planet dead. The reason unknown.

Nature had gifted her people with a weapon and they had embraced it, cultivated and used their own people to carry it.

With the source of the disease unknown to the Kori, the Kalos became poison to touch. Tainted, evil souls. The Kori always used weapons at a distance that turned the Kalos to dust. They never made skin to skin contact or engaged in conversation. They exterminated the Kalos like rodents, not thinking twice about snuffing out their lives. Acceptable genocide. Sanctioned by their leaders and priests.

Cities established. Populations moved in. The mystery grew into a religious belief. Soon the Kalos became enemies of the Kori gods. Their extinction the only suitable answer. The lack of contact had made the plague null. Null until now. Now it was a breath away from reemerging and striking down Kalos’s enemies.

Not by any means divine. The virus had been created in a lab, before all technology became lost and the Kalos de-evolved to the primitives they’d become. A simple enough cure, but unknown to the Kori. A parasite that feasted on the virus lived in a fruit nut deep in the jungle.

He’d die. Every Kori man, woman and child on the planet would die. Once inside the host, transmission quickly mutated to an airborne illness. Her people would be free at the cost of another people’s lives.

It was why they cast her out. No Kori had dared to touch a Kalos. Until Ursus. And she’d walked away.

“Ursus.” She placed both hands on either side of his face and lifted, until he looked her in the eyes. “Touching me is dangerous. I could infect you.”

“Those are stories they tell to keep us from forming relationships with the enemy.”

“No.” She touched his shoulder. She could give him the fruit nut, save him. Prevent the disease from ever infecting his people, and hers would continue to die, every day the Kori occupied her world.

When they’d determined the virus was in her blood, that she was a carrier, they’d marked her. The tattoo she’d on her face was to signify she could give her people the gift of life. He’d assumed she’d meant to bear children.

Tesza wasn’t a bearer of children, but a bringer of death. Only the prettiest among them, only the strongest were marked in this manner, vessels of the virus, and her people honored them. If one of them should be raped, the Kori would bring the death to their people. Millions would perish for one man’s mistake.

Ursus could be the trigger. Tesza didn’t want him to be that. Inside, she’d perish with him. But more than his life weighed on her. Who was she to be an executioner?

Though the soldiers murdered her people, could she kill the innocents who didn’t? She wasn’t sure she wanted to deliver the curse to his people. She would be a slayer of millions and savior of a dying race. Trading one life for another didn’t make it right.

“Stop.”

“Relax. They’re superstitions, stories.”

“It’s a virus. You’ll die. Your people will be infected. The cure lies too deep into Kalos territory, guarded by my people. They’ll burn the orchards if they think the plague has started.”

She stroked her hand on his cheek. “You have to let me go. You can’t have me. Ever.”

Ursus tipped his head. “You’re serious.”

“Yes. They carved my honor mark from my face because I refused. I was captured when I came to see you to say goodbye. I was going to take my life.”

Ursus sucked in a breath. “You say there’s a cure?”

“Yes. But if they know the infection has spread among your people, they’ll destroy it. My people have a natural immunity from feasting on it for years. Your people don’t eat Kalos food or anything grown on the planet. They don’t have the benefit of its protection.”

“Take me to it.”

“No. I can’t do that. I’ve sworn to protect the secret with my life.”

Ursus lowered his mouth and nipped Tesza’s lip. “Then I will seduce it from you.”

“Please Ursus; I don’t want you to die, or your people to die.” Tesza pushed on his shoulders.

“I don’t believe you’re a murderer. I think you’ll take me to it to save my life and the lives of the innocents that will die.”

“Don’t ask that of me. I’ve sworn before my gods to take my life before giving up the secret. My soul will be damned.”

Ursus pulled back to his elbows and studied her. “I can’t let you go now that I know you hold this information.”

“Are you going to tell your commander?”

“Not at the moment. But I can’t free you. You hold the key to a plague that could wipe my people from existence. You’re not only a weapon; you have knowledge of a cure. For my people, I can’t let you go.”

“Let me go Ursus. Let me die with honor.”

“I can’t let you leave with that secret. If another of my people gets infected, you hold the information we need to stop it. Though I need you, my people need you more and I can’t risk what you told me happening.”

“Get off me.” Tesza shoved with all her strength.

Ursus’s eyes glowed. “Could you let me die?”

Tesza glared.

He stroked her cheek, gazing into her soul. “Could you stand back and watch this plague consume me?”

She swallowed and turned her head away, looking at the wall.

He tipped her head back. “I don’t think you can. How long before I’d die? How long before the plague spreads among the Kori?”

“Please, don’t do it,” Tesza whispered. “Don’t. You’ll die.”

Ursus lowered his mouth and kissed her, demanding everything. Her heart, her soul...her gift. He kissed along her jaw, and then whispered in her ear. “It’s too late for that. I touched your blood when you soaked my shirt.”

Tesza shook her head. The copper spots in the victim’s eyes were the first symptom that appeared in under an hour. The rest of the disease wouldn’t manifest for at least three days. The spots appeared at the time of infection. His eyes appeared normal. Clear.

“No. You haven’t been infected.”