CHAPTER 1
I stood in front of my door cursing myself as I was searching for the keys in my tote bag. The sun was about to set and since Hamburg had fallen it was not a good idea for unmarried women to be outside after dark.
Had I left them inside? -- Damn it! -- could I really have been so stupid? Should I call one of my friends to see if I could spend the night at their place? Should I call a locksmith? Should I...?
I let out a sigh of relieve as my fingers touched the jingling metal of my keys. Then, all of a sudden, I felt a presence right behind me.
"Be silent and open the door, human," a male voice whispered into my ear. He had appeared out of nowhere but now he was so close that I could feel the warmth of his body against my back.
Before I could scream or turn around a big hand covered my mouth. He was now pressed against my back, trapping me between his body and the door. I could feel the leather armor of his uniform where my shoulders were forced against his chest. I knew he was wearing a uniform because that is what all the Veril soldiers wore and I knew he was a Veril soldier because they were the reason I should not have been outside once it got dark.
"You smell so good, human," his breath was hot against my neck and I could feel his lips brush my ear as he spoke. "If you do not open the door at this moment, I will have you right here, on this doorstep."
And, although I was paralyzed with fear, to my even greater horror, I could feel my body reacting to him, to his voice and his hard body so close against mine. For one moment I felt myself giving in, relaxing against him, losing myself in his scent.
"You smell good, too," I whispered. Why had I said that? Was I off my mind? I had heard that the Veril had ways to twist human minds if they wanted to.
I could shortly feel him tense against me then he relaxed again and I heard a soft laugh. I guess that he had not been expecting my reaction either.
"I am glad that you think so," his voice was ringing with what seemed like amusement. Did Veril even have that -- humor?
"Now open before the last bit of my self restraint runs out."
And I did. My hands were shaking as I turned the damned keys -- if only I had found them a little bit earlier -- in the lock. He pushed the door open.
I had no choice. Nobody was going to come to my aid, even though the street with its little bars and restaurants was bristling with people -- mostly men, of course. Even if somebody wanted to help (which was very unlikely): My assailant was in his perfectly good right to capture me.
When my country had capitulated to the Veril after the massacre of Hamburg, we had expected to be occupied by their troops, we had expected to lose big parts or even all of our territory, we had expected that we might all be slaughtered. But against our fears the Veril had been more lenient with us than we probably deserved.
All they had demanded were three things: The first one being the permanent right to keep their military stationed here while my country was demilitarized completely -- a safety measure, they had said, so we would not be able to attack them again. Secondly the city of Hamburg, which had already been conquered, would remain Veril property. It stayed under the rule of General Tsul Vo'ren, or the Butcher of Hamburg, as he was called behind closed doors by my people. He had been the general in command of the decisive battle -- if you could call this massacre a battle -- that had lead to our surrender.
All in all the territorial demands the Veril had made to my country were small -- we had been dreading much, much worse. It had been us who had started the war after all, and we had seen in Hamburg just how grossly we had underestimated the Veril's power and their dark magic.
The Veril leaders (who were called the Counsel of Twelve), had declared that we could have peace and stay relatively autonomous, that there would be no more deaths if only we adhered to one more condition: The Veril did not need more land or power, since their territories were bountiful and not constricted by the spatial limits that our dimension suffered from, but there was one thing they did not have: Women. Apparently no girls had been born since decades and even though their race lives longer than humans they were facing the end of their kind.
That is why, when our government had met with the Veril leaders, Suchil Tem, the head of the Counsel of Twelve, had named their third condition: The right for Veril soldiers to procreate with any unmarried woman of their choosing and, in addition, he asked for twelve young women to be given to the most important Veril officials as "wives". Our chancellor Alexander Höcke, since he had no other choice (and maybe also because he wasn't an unmarried woman) had agreed, and the peace treaty had been signed.
The cool air in the stairwell of my apartment building engulfed me the moment he pushed me inside in front of him -- a relief from the summer heat outside.
I could feel his strength in the grip around my arm as he whispered, "Show me where you live."
Instead of responding I tried to yank my arm free from his grip but I didn't manage to move his hand in the slightest. In response he tightened his clasp, making me inhale in pain.
His voice had a menacing tone as he spoke into my ear again, "I am much stronger than you and I am much faster than you, human. You can not run from me and you most definitely can not fight me. Do not be a fool and make this harder than it has to be. I ask you again: Tell me where you live."
"Second floor," I said gritting my teeth in pain. "Please, you are hurting me."
"Go!" he used his body to push me roughly towards the elevator but loosened his hold on my wrist a little bit. All I could hear was his breathing behind me and the beating of my own heart while we were waiting for what felt like an eternity.
My house was equipped with, what had to be the world's slowest elevator, a relict from the 1980ies. When it finally arrived I pressed my eyes shut. I knew it was childish but I didn't think I could bear the sight of his inhuman form in the elevator mirror. I heard the door close behind me and now he didn't whisper anymore when he spoke. His voice was hoarse and, even though it had a tint of the otherworldly timbre of Veril speech, I was surprised at how good his English was. When communicating with us the Veril spoke mostly English. I guess they had no particular interest in making us speak Veril, or they just did not think that we were smart enough to learn it. But they also refused to speak our language, German, surely out of spite for us. But I suppose the conqueror does not have to learn the language of the conquered.
It was probably only a matter of time until more of us would know how to speak the Veril tongue, considering that the capitulation had only been five months ago, but for now English was the lingua franca between our nations. And the Veril usually spoke a very broken version of it
-- not him though, "Are you afraid to see the face of the man who will father your child, mishtz'in?"
Anger rose in my stomach at his words. He was mocking me -- as if what he was going to do to me was not enough.
"Fuck you, you demon prick!" I hissed through my gritted teeth.
I could feel in his tensing body, that I had pissed him off.
He snarled in my ear, "If you speak to me like that again, you will regret it. Now open your eyes, human."
I pressed my eyes closed even harder. Not so much out of anger, but more because now I was really terrified. His strong fingers gripped my long, dark brown hair, roughly pulling my head back against him.
"Look. At. Me."
My cheek was now pressed against his, such a close, intimate position, and I could smell him again, why did he smell so good? Surely it must be some kind of evil magic. I really didn't want to make him more angry, so I forced myself to look at the monster in the mirror.
But he was no monster -- he was strange and inhuman, but not a monster. Like all Veril, his skin was a dark shade of olive green. His stature was that of a tall human man with the build of a warrior. His size made me look almost small and fragile in front of him, even though with my hight of 5'8 foot (or 174 centimeters) I was considered relatively tall for a woman, even in my country.
His uniform was typical for Veril soldiers, made out of strapped leather pieces and rough fabric. Around his left arm he was wearing a red band with golden markings, made out of geometrical lines and triangles, that were different than anything I had seen any Veril wear up until now. Did it signify some kind of rank? Having grown up in a country that had not had a war in it's own territory since more than one hundred years, I was pretty clueless about military insignia, it was a topic that had always seemed completely irrelevant to me -- until today. At least I didn't need to be an expert in weaponry to see that he was armed to the teeth: A belt around his waist carried a gun, several knives and something that I could not quite make out in my position but what looked like the hilt of a sword.
He looked up and our gazes met in the mirror. I breathed in. His eyes were the color of molten gold, the pupils more elongated than those of humans, the outer corners of his eyes turning slightly up. He had noble features with high cheek bones and an aquiline nose. He wore his black hair short, the pointy tips of his ears uncovered, which made his otherworldly strangeness so much more evident. He looked like a dark elf or a beautiful demon lord. A long scar ran down over the whole left side of his face from his eyebrow almost down to his jaw. He did not seem much older than my twenty-three years, but of course I had no idea on how to tell a Veril's age. For all I knew he could be one hundred years old and I would be none the wiser.
He was still pulling my head back by my hair, his mouth terribly close to mine as he spoke, "That was not so difficult, was it now, little human?"
Was this creature really going to impregnate? What an absurdly terrifying thought!
"I guess at least my child will be beautiful," I whispered.
Why had I said that out loud again? What was wrong with me? His eyes sparkled with amusement.
"Mishtz'in," he said. His voice was dangerously low. That word! It was one of the first Veril loanwords that had entered into our language. It was, of course, an insult. People used it as a demeaning term for a woman who had "fulfilled the Treaty" which was an euphemism for being violated by a Veril. I always thought that it was particularly revolting to call the victims names, instead of treating them with compassion, let alone gratitude, for saving us all from a much worse treatment by the occupying forces.
Did the word mishtz'in have the same meaning in Veril, it's language of origin? Was he calling me a something akin to a whore? Why did I even care? Of all the things he was going to do to me -- and considering that he was just at this moment kidnapping me -- being called names should be the very least of my concerns. But still: For some reason it annoyed me to no end.
"You...," I started angrily, but before I could finish he had pulled my head back further, roughly closing my mouth with his lips.
The kiss was forceful but his lips were surprisingly soft and, for some reason, his hard body against mine, his strong hands in my hair and his grasp on my wrist felt incredibly good. So good in fact, that my knees were getting soft and my head was starting to spin. 'Don't open your mouth' I thought remembering the stories about Veril venom that supposedly turned you into some mindless sex-slave. I had always thought that this was probably a lie, but the way he was making me feel right now, I was starting to believe it all.
With a *pling* the elevator came to a halt breaking up our kiss. I gasped for air, stumbling a little, still dizzy, as he maneuvered me out onto the second floor, his hand never having left my wrist.
"Do you live alone?" he asked me.
"Yes, erm, I mean, no, but nobody is home," I stuttered. Actually I lived with a flat-mate.
