A Dangerous One

The planet Adliar was a beautiful place. Tall, soaring trees filled most of the planet's land. The trees have large canopies, filled with jewel toned leaves and creatures of many species. Sparkling blue water make up the oceans, seas, and lakes. The blue sky is a clear crystalline color, with few clouds to break the rays of the golden sun.

The people of Adliar were the source of the planet's true beauty, though.

Men made up most of the population. Women were rarely born among the Adliats, so they were a rare and precious commodity. Women were often sold as slaves to the highest bidder. Luckily, all the Adliat women were renowned throughout the galaxies for their beauty.

The Adliat women are humanoid looking, except for a few major differences. For one, they have tails. The tails of the Adliat women help them balance among the high branches of the trees. No one knows why some tails are scaled, feathered, furred, or just ordinary skin and others are different. The trait is not passed down through the matriarchal line, so there is no way to guess what a woman may have.

The women also differ from the ordinary humans of Earth in their faces. They have larger eyes, that are slightly tilted in their faces, like a cats. The eyes of the Adliat women are very beautiful, and have a luminous quality. Also like cat's eyes, they have slitted pupils. Lush, black eyelashes frame these magnificent eyes like a thick line of fur.

Hair, glorious colors from every part of the color wheel, flow in long locks down their smooth, supple backs. Adliat women never cut their hair short, for it is the marking of a disgraced woman.

They have smooth, hairless skin, even in their pubic regions. The only hair on their bodies is on their heads, their eyebrows, their eyelashes, and sometimes their tails.

Sharp, slightly elongated canines grace their mouths. They are not like a vampire's, who have long thin fangs, but like a predatory animal who has sharp thick canines for slicing meet.

Height can range from four feet tall to seven feet tall. These women can have full bodies, with large breasts and buttocks, or thin bodies, like an athletes. All the women have a high degree of athleticism, from their leaping among the high branches of the trees. The muscles in their bodies have been honed to a lean perfection.

Adliat women are greatly known for their beauty, and this is also a curse of theirs. They are highly prized slaves in the galaxies, but because of their rarity, very expensive. Slavers often come to Adliat to attempt to capture some of these women, but it is hard for them to maneuver their ships through the trees.

The people of Adliar are behind in technological advances, so they have no defense against these slavers except for their amazing ability to leap from branch to branch among the trees.

The men of Adliar live under the ground in a complex cave system. They have brutish strength, and have to kidnap the women from the tree tops to find a mate. They capture the women using nets they make from the strong sea kelp.

When a female Adliat is born, they are released into the trees to live with the other women until they are either captured, or decide it is time to be mated. Male Adliat are raised by the men.

I digress. Our story begins with a specific Adliat female, one who was more beautiful than any other ever born, and who had new powers she has just discovered. This is her story.

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I sprinted along the wide branch. The screams of the other women I lived in my clan with rang out around me as they tried to evade the swooping nets of the men. I will not be captured this day! I vowed to myself. We all knew how the women who were captured lived, down there in those horrid cave systems below our beloved trees.

Our trees soared hundreds of feet into the air. We should have been safe up here, in the jewel toned canopy rife with life. Yet, the men still managed to swoop in unexpected and capture us from time to time.

I shook my head to shake these thoughts from my mind. The men had become more aggressive with my clan of late, doing raids every other week. Usually, raids only happened once or twice every few months. This constant battling was odd, and exhausting.

The branch I was running on began to narrow. Before it could no longer support me, i leapt ten feet to the right and landed on another branch, my hardened feet soles gripping the branch with long toes. The callouses along my feet and hands were useful for gripping branches. My tail also aided me in that, the long lightly red-furred appendage attached to my spine. It was long and whiplike, with short red fur, and bushy part of red fur on the end. I used it to anchor myself to the tree limb by wrapping it around the limb.

A net arced over my head, just missing its mark. The men always missed me, thankfully. My height of 5'4 was easy to confuse from a distance. Of course, this could also be a curse. The men of our planet liked short females, it made them feel superior.

My bright, flame red hair streamed out behind me as I ran close to the trunk of the tree. I could reach speeds of nearly sixty mile an hour, or so my clan-mate says. She is the one who found, decoded, and read the odd Earthling books from a crashed ship.

If I can just reach the trunk, I can make it to safety, I told myself as I pushed to go faster. The trunks of the trees had thick, grooved bark that acted like foot and handholds. I could climb higher in the tree to the thinner branches that couldn't support the men's weight. Then, I would be safe.

A woman running just ahead of me screamed as a net wrapped itself around her lithe torso. She fell like a rock off the branch, into the waiting arms of male. The brown skinned beast sniffed her skin and gave a satisfied grunt before lumbering to the tall ladder nearby. The woman shrieked and twisted, trying to escape, but the male was too strong for her to fight off. Her silvery blue hair dragged on the ground behind them, like a river of tears that fell from her eyes.

I cursed loudly as a net skimmed by foot, slowing me down a little. To be taken by the men was something feared by us all. The men were renowned for their brutality to the women they captured.

Using an upright branch jutting from the one I was running on as a pole, I grabbed it with my hands and flung my body around it in a wide circle, then let go and flew to drop on the tree branch below. Running forward, I leaped into the air to land on the lumbering male's shoulders. He grunted in surprise as the force of my weight brought him to his knees. The woman looked up at me with hope as I snapped the man's neck with my hands. He slumped to the ground in heap.

"Hurry," I hissed at her. "That won't keep him down for long, and he has your scent now. He can track you."

She nodded. "Thank you, sister," she said quietly, clasping my arm in gratitude.

I smiled at her. "Save yourself so you won't get captured again."

She took off along the branch.

I began my sprint again, and leaped from the branch to land on one slightly above this one. The screams were escalating around us.

Women fell from the branches more quickly now. Men began to roar in anger. Confused, I looked around for the source of their anger. Silver ships zipped through the trees, smoothly maneuvering between the branches. Small guns mounted on their roofs shot small missiles through the air. When one struck a woman, she screamed and went down. A ship would fly under her, open a door on the roof, and let her fall in before resealing the hatch and flying off.

I cried out in terror and began an even faster run to the trunk of the tree. The slavers were back, and this time they had a way to capture us.

Being captured by a slaver was an even more terrifying prospect than being captured by an Adliat male. The slaver would take you to an auction sight, where you would be sold to the highest bidder. Women who were taken by slavers never came back.

Desperation colored my mind as more of my clan-mates went down around me. These women that I am living with, going down like flies to be taken away forever. I cried out in despair as I saw each of them go down. Anger consumed me. No, not anger, something stronger. Blind rage, an all-encompassing fury. My vision became tinged with reddish gold, and fire exploded outward from me. I heard shouts of surprise, but I just kept running, barely understanding what had happened.

The flames didn't harm me, but left behind a scorched path as I ran forward. More silver ships surrounded me as the slavers began to notice the brightly colored red, gold, and orange flames that surrounded me. My red fabric breast and pubic coverings still remained, strangely enough.

I felt a dart hit my thigh. I kept running with no change in pace. Reaching speeds of nearly eighty miles an hour, the wind pushed my hair back in long locks of wavy reddish gold hair. Flames leapt from the locks, crackling and whispering behind me.

Another dart hit my neck, right over my life's blood artery. I stumbled, as the two darts finally began to affect me. I screamed in fury, and fire spewed from my mouth and throat in a long spout of flame. It scorched the leaves above me, and they rained down in ashes around me.

I fell off the branch I was on in a flaming ball fury. The fire began to sputter out as the drug made me drowsy.

My mind slipped into oblivion just as the hatch of a slaver ship opened and then closed me inside.