Helen (Roswelllostcause) - Yeah, the government is probably not the most "truthful". But the special Unit of the FBI - hunting aliens - are worse. Thank you for the feedback! P.s. How's that spaceship coming along..?
L-J-L 76 - Thank you
Eve (begonia9508) - This is not the last time Jeff got to talk to his daughter, trust me. They'll figure something out. Maybe when they're in Australia, as you mentioned. Thank you for the feedback!
Carolyn (keepsmiling7) - Thank you
Previously on "Lethal Whispers"...
Max, Tess, Michael and Isabel believe themselves to be aliens, because of them lacking memories from their first living years and having special abilities.
Max brought Liz back from recent death when she was just young. He seems to have formed some type of connection with her since then, enabling himself to see when she's in danger through premonitions.
Liz has been let in on the secret of the aliens walking the earth.
Liz was attacked, drawing the attention of the FBI and the group is now on the run to keep themselves safe.
Liz was just abducted by the special unit of the FBI, asked for the information she has on the group. She was returned just a couple of hours later. Traumatized.
Tess has been trying to get Max interested in her and did a mindwarp on Liz to drive a wedge between Liz and Max.
Max normally works as an EMT, with a colleague named Melissa. Melissa just saved the gang while they were being hunted by the FBI at a mall.
Melissa doesn't seem to like Liz very much; using her powers to "sedate" the girl, which revealed that Liz isn't necessarily the only one in her mind. She seems to share a mind with someone named Aislin.
Melissa told the story of how Max, Isabel, Tess and Michael have all lived before - on the planet Antar. Antar exploded not too long ago, meaning that the aliens are now "stuck on Earth", while the initial plan was for the aliens to eventually return home and reclaim their right to the Antarian throne from Max and Isabel's uncle Khivar.
Zan was married to Ava as a newly crowned prince (after the death of his father due to an Antarian disease), but it was - according to Melissa - rumored that Zan had already fallen in love with a farm girl named Aislin.
There was an uprising; Aislin was killed, but it seems as if her essence was retrieved by Zan, saved along with his own as scientists extracted the essence of the Royal Four and sent them Earth. Young Max accidentally transferred Aislin's essence into Liz's (at the moment) dead body, just before he brought Liz back. This means that Liz and Aislin are sharing the same mind.
Melissa's plan for the aliens are for them to go to Australia, where there is a whole alien community that would be able to protect and hide them. Tess - no longer feeling very welcomed by the group - told them that she'll not be coming along to Australia.
Liz called her father - Max insisted - and got him to understand that she was not the criminal the FBI has been portraying her (and her friends) as.
Max and Liz have barely started their journey together, but they have fallen hard - fast. Let's see where that'll take them in this next chapter
CHAPTER 53
Liz
She looked down at her hands. They were sinking into the ground, covered in cold mud.
At the sound of a loud explosion, she whipped her head to the side just in time to witness a small cottage going up in flames.
Terror was creeping up her arms and legs, as though it were transmitted by the mud. With a subdued shriek of fear, she pulled her hand free from the clinging thick mud and placed it further in front of her.
She was on her knees, her legs bare and cold, her naked feet trying to find leverage in the fluid ground to move forward.
She needed to move forward.
She couldn’t remember how she had gotten here. Adrenaline was pumping hotly through her veins, sharpening her senses to a degree that almost made her faint. It made her aware of the warm fluid on the inside of her thighs and with quite some effort, she pulled one hand free to touch the inside of her thigh.
A broken “No” slipped out of her trembling lips as she saw the red color mixed with the mud on her fingers.
Blood.
The hand still in the mud was slowly sinking deeper and deeper since it was the only hand supporting her weight and with a tremble her body shook her back down on all four. It was mere desperation that had her continue her crawl while tears rolled down her dirty face, moaning words of sorrow about the baby.
She had lost her baby.
She felt herself sink deeper and deeper into the mud and her arms were trembling with the effort of the crawl. The night was filled with screams. Possibly the screams belonged to people she loved, people she had grown up with, people she had laughed with.
But none of those screams could be recognized. They were almost animalistic, stricken with anguish or impossible pain.
The rebellion were killing them. To make an example. That’s what Zan had told her. They were an example. Collateral damage. Everyone she had ever loved were not to exist because the murder of these poor villagers were to serve as a way to scare the royal government.
She didn’t have to close her eyes to see him before her. How frantic he had looked, how he hadn’t cared that her parents had seen him enter their house. There hadn’t been time for their regular precautions, there hadn’t been any use to disguise his true identity. The warnings had spilled out of his mouth as his hands had moved over her face, her body, as if ascertaining that she was still whole, still alive. She could still feel the love in his hands, the tremble of his fear.
He’d barely had time to get all the information out before the first screams had started. The rebellion had already moved in by then. She had turned to tell her parents to run only to find them captured by two masked men, knives to their throats. The look in her parents’ eyes were forever ingrained on her cornea as the men sliced their throats open, from ear to ear, in one long deep movement.
She hadn’t even screamed, the scream frozen in shock at the top of her throat. She’d wanted to rush towards them and hold them in her arms as life left them, so they wouldn’t die alone, but Zan was pulling on her hand, screaming at her that they had to run. Her parents’ killers were already running towards them and Zan’s option seemed like the only plausible one.
Even now she wondered if her hesitation, her need to go to her parents, had killed him.
There was another explosion close by and she squeezed her eyes tightly shut against the sounds, trying to will the reality away. Make it stop. Please, make it stop.
She knew where she needed to go, knew that he would be at the top of the hill. That’s how far they’d gotten after leaving her childhood home behind, before rebels caught up with them. That’s how far they’d gotten before Zan’s hand was pulled from hers and he was kicked to the ground.
He fought them. He fought them well. Or so she hoped that he would, but she didn’t stick around long enough to find out. One of the rebels made sure of that as he took a hold of her hair and with a sharp tug pulled her off her feet. She had landed hard, her vision going dim for a second, before rough hands pulled her back up. She didn’t remember the seconds after that particularly clearly. They were a muddled mix of strikes, pain, blood and screams.
The beatings that hurt the most were the ones to her pregnant abdomen. The ones that eventually would result in her miscarriage.
She tried to push the thoughts away as she crawled closer to the top, hoping for a miracle, hoping that the men had left after they had pushed her down the hill, counting on her to die on her own. Alone. If they were still there, they would surely not give her a second chance.
A violent contraction ripped through her abdomen, its suddenness making her cry out in pain. Her arms lost their support and she fell into the mud, sliding into fetal position with her teeth biting into her lip.
“Lin?”
Through her blurry vision she saw a figure approach and she instinctively shied away, cowering around the unborn baby inside her womb.
“No, let me die,” she whispered brokenly. “Just let me die.”
“You’re hurt,” the figure whispered and even though his voice was distorted and slurred, she recognized it.
The person limping towards her was him. Zan.
“Our baby,” she sobbed and he fell to his knees next to her.
“You’re bleeding,” he whispered and she couldn’t see him clearly through her own tears. It must be the tears that were distorting her view of him… She wouldn’t let herself believe that his face was a sickly color, bloodied and swollen in a disfiguring manner. She was pretty sure his left eye was gone, but she closed her eyes quickly against the possible empty eye socket.
“You’re alive,” she croaked.
He didn’t say anything for a long time and another contraction worked itself painfully through her body. “I think I’m having the baby.”
“It’s too soon,” he said softly, sadly. She realized why when he crawled next to her in the mud and kissed her forehead. Her hand moved out to pull him closer but instead of finding dry clothing, she found warm, sticky fluid covering most parts of him.
She wasn’t the only one bleeding.
“You’re dying,” she stated, trying to hold the sorrow inside of her chest. If it got out, it might just make her explode.
“Yes,” he said softly and scooted closer.
She realized that the cold mud must be chilling him down too and wouldn’t really prolong his life, but she was selfishly happy that he chose to be close to her instead of living a minute or two longer.
“I’ve called for help.”
“Will they make it?” she asked before another contraction hit and she started screaming. Her scream was dampened by his lips on her lips and she forced herself to focus on him instead of the pain.
“I don’t know,” he whispered and kissed down her muddy face. “I don’t know.”
She hadn’t dared to look up at him yet. Not fully. Instead, she had to ask, “Your eye?”
“A knife,” he answered simply and she nodded.
“You need to live,” she whispered, because it didn’t matter that she wanted to die in his arms, he was the king. He had other duties to attend to. “You need to live so you can stop them.”
He kissed her eyebrows. “It’s too late. But we have a back-up plan.”
“We do?”
She bit down hard on her bottom lip as a contraction ripped her apart, her fingers digging into the side of his waist. She felt it coming, felt the need to push. She tried to catch her breath and just before she started to push, he grabbed her chin and made her look up at him. Made her look at his damaged face, of all the blood and swellings. Of his punctured eye and the teeth missing in his mouth.
“I’m taking you with me.”
“I need to push,” she got out between clenched teeth.
“No. You need to look at me.”
“Zan,” she pleaded, the pain building. She couldn’t hold back. “I need to-“
“Look at me.”
So she did and then there was no more pain. No more of anything.
“Liz!”
She sat up so abruptly that she almost knocked Max over.
“Thank God,” she heard him mumble next to her as she tried to make sense of where she was - of when she was. Her heart was beating in her throat and the pain of the contractions still echoed in her abdomen. She could still feel the dampness of the mud against her hands and the warmness of his kisses against his face.
She whipped her head to the side and saw Max in the shadows of the night. She must have looked as frightened as she felt because the concern in his eyes darkened and the hand he had stretched out in her direction paused mid-air. “You were dreaming.”
His soft attempt at explanation caused the air to flow back into her lungs, which made it feel as if her lungs collapsed. She bent at the waist, her chin dipping to the hollow between her collarbones, her arms wrapped tightly around her middle, and let out a deep moan.
“Liz?”
The physical pain was gone, but the emotional pain was so much worse.
But when he cautiously first put a hand on her shoulder and then slowly moved to sit behind her, putting his arms around her crumbled shape and pulling her against the comfort of his chest, she let him. She let him rock her soothingly as sobs wrecked her body and let him place consoling kisses to the side of her feverish neck.
“You were bleeding again,” he whispered when her sobs diminished into soft whimpers. “But I couldn’t wake you.”
Her eyes were still closed and she reveled in his voice. She remembered far too clearly the disfigured face of the former king of Antar. Even though Zan hadn’t looked much like Max at all, Liz still recognized Zan as Max. Their souls were the same.
“She needed me to see it,” Liz croaked, her voice dry and battered by the tears.
“Aislin?” Max asked.
Liz moved her arms out from underneath his and sought out his hands. Looking down at his hands, she moved her own fingers across the pads of his fingers, tracing the faint blue blood vessels at the back of his hands.
“She needed me to understand,” Liz said.
He was silent for a long time, letting her caress his fingers, his hands, before he whispered, his breath warm against the curve of her neck, “What happened?”
She shivered in the warm cocoon of his arms. “It was like Melissa said; the rebels wanted to make an example of one of the villages. Aislin’s. Aislin watched her parents get murdered in front of her,” Liz swallowed and forced her voice to remain steady, “and if Zan hadn’t already been there, they probably would’ve murdered her right there as well.”
“He went there to warn her, just like Melissa said.”
Liz brought his right hand up to her mouth and placed a gentle kiss to the center of his palm. She felt his breathing pause for a moment, a moment she filled with, “But they were attacked while running away. They were separated during the attack and they were both abused to the brink of death.”
“Why didn’t they kill them?” Max asked. “They must’ve recognized Zan.”
Liz shook her head, moving his hand down the front of her chest, so that it brushed her breast (her breathing hitched for a second at the fleeting sensation) before she settled it against her flat stomach. Max had gone completely still behind her back.
“I don’t know what happened,” Liz answered. “Aislin was pushed off a cliff and presumed dead. While crawling back up, the contractions started, and Zan found her halfway there.”
Liz turned in his arms, Max holding still, and came to face him. Her legs were bent at the knees - the knees resting against his chest - and she felt the heat from his bare legs on each side of her hip, encasing her. She leaned in and put a hand to his cheek. His eyes were locked on hers, his gaze speaking volumes of untranslated emotions. She looked at his long dark lashes and his straight nose.
He had changed back to himself before they had gone to bed, something she was very grateful for right now. She needed to see him. Really see him. She felt the result of him being without a razor for the past days prickle the palm of her hand and her fingertips as she moved her hand to trace down his face. Her fingers brushed his upper lip and he held completely still, his eyes never leaving her face even though her eyes more frequently moved to follow the trail of her fingers.
“He was badly injured,” Liz whispered, a fresh tear rolling down her face. He moved, only to gently brush the tear away. “She almost didn’t recognize him… If it hadn’t been for his eyes.”
She bent forward and placed a gentle kiss on both of his eyelids, before pulling back and taking a hold of the hem of her tank top. She started to pull it up, watching the reactions play out on his face, as she continued talking, “He had the same eyes as you. He loved her and you could see it. Just like I can see it in your eyes.”
She pushed the top over her head and threw it to the side. She was naked in front of him, discounting panties and the fact that her pulled up knees were still obscuring her. She reached forward and tugged on his T-shirt. Wordlessly, he let her pull it up his body and over his head.
“He said that he would take her with him,” Liz continued and brushed another tear off her cheek. “So he asked her to look at him. To ignore the pain of the contractions, the pain of their baby’s death and the recent death of her parents, and look at him.”
Max put warm hands in the space between her knees and gently spread them apart, letting her legs fall down on each side of his body, revealing her more fully to him. His eyes were trapping hers as he leaned in, his hands capturing her face, and kissed her.
Slowly and softly.
Their bodies automatically obeyed gravity, her back softly falling backwards and settling against the surface of the bed, her legs accompanying his body on top of hers. The feel of his skin against hers made her shiver and her body intuitively arched up against his. His lips left hers and moved down the angle of her jaw, into the curve between her chin and throat and down the pulse of her jugular.
“Max,” she semi-whispered, semi-moaned.
He came back up, locking eyes with her again, caressing a strand of her hair between his fingers. “Then what happened?”
His voice was breathy and warm. She wanted to curl up in it and hide. “She disappeared.”
He seemed to think about this for a second before saying, “But she’s still here.”
Liz shook her head, found his hand and brought it down to her breast. Her nipple hardened in response and his moan mingled with hers as she breathed, “No. I am.”
He looked at her with those intense eyes for another second before crashing their lips together. She felt her soul opening to him as the connection flared open, causing all the nerve endings in her body to stand at attention and her body to soften in anticipation.
His hands were everywhere; floating down the sides of her waist, caressing her cheeks, burying in her hair, whisking over her breasts, pulling down her panties, and he wasted a second of not adoring her body to remove his own underwear.
Their union was like the first water to a dying person in the desert, or the pain relief to someone with crushing injuries to their leg.
To claim that it was like the fireworks at Fourth of July would possibly be corny, but that was what it was like.
She could feel him everywhere; inside her body, around her body, inside her mind and touching every inch of her skin. Her lips caressed the smoothness of his chest as he moved inside her, her teeth grazed the top of his bicep as his lips circled her nipple and her toes curled tightly as his fingers interlocked with hers, pushing their joined hands above her head and letting her fall apart underneath him.
The connection stayed open between them, let them experience not only their own feelings but the other’s as well. Which brought every feeling to a spike, to an ultimate maximum.
She was barely coming down from her first high before he pushed her into the next. His body was trembling against hers and his skin was damp with sweat under her caressing hands. She brushed his damp hair off his forehead and placed a kiss there before he surrendered to his weight and put his head against her chest.
Her fingers moved through his hair slowly and contently. She was completely spent, but sleep was the furthest from her mind with the sensations of his proximity and intimacy still pulsating in her.
She knew, without the shadow of a doubt, that she loved him. She, Liz Parker. And she could tell from the connection that Max Evans loved her. Not Aislin.
“That was great,” she whispered and laughed. She hadn’t felt such happiness since all of this started. Maybe never.
He lifted his head off her chest and smiled at her. Shifting his weight onto his elbows he placed a soft kiss on her lips. “You’re an amazing woman, Elizabeth Parker.”
She smiled at him and let her thumbs trace his eyebrows. “Now I know why the government want to get rid of you.”
He raised an eyebrow curiously. “You do?”
She nodded and bit her bottom lip self-consciously. “If humans found out how incredible alien sex is, you guys would take over the planet. We would offer no resistance.”
He looked surprised for a second, before using his mouth to pull her lip away from her teeth. Against her lips, he whispered, “But then I’m no threat at all.”
“No?”
“Because the only human being I’ll be having sex with is you.”
She smiled and looked at him as he pulled back. “Other aliens included?” She subtly included Tess in the conversation, displaying her insecurities about Max’s former alien wife.
“Only. You.” His seriousness melted her smile and she started worrying her lip again.
He frowned. “What’s wrong?”
“She doesn’t want a new body,” Liz said. She didn’t mention her name, but Max didn’t need to hear it. He nodded slowly and before he could say anything, Liz added, “That’s why she wanted me to see what really happened. She wanted me to know that she would never forget that. Would never find peace with those memories.”
“She doesn’t want to live again,” Max whispered in clarification and Liz could see that the notion made him sad. Even if this version of Zan didn’t know Aislin, he could probably still sympathize with what Zan had been trying to do and be sad about him not being able to see it through all the way.
Liz wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pulled him down against her body again. She brought her legs up around the back of his legs, holding him tight.
“She wants to stay in the background, just soaking up the good qualities of us, of the memories we’re going to make, and gathering glimpses of the Zan she used to know.”
He was tightening against her and she realized belatedly that he couldn’t be this close to her without reacting, without wanting more.
He raised himself to his elbows and claimed her mouth for another heated kiss. She was breathing hard as he pulled back and her stomach tightened as he said, “We better start making some good memories then.”
TBC...
