The Host

This place was truly the highest and the lowest of all worlds — the most beautiful senses, the most exquisite emotions... the most malevolent desires, the darkest deeds. Perhaps it was meant to be so. Perhaps without the lows, the highs could not be reached.

"It was a miracle — more than a miracle — when I found you, Melanie. Right now, if I was given the choice between having the world back and having you, I wouldn't be able to give you up. Not to save five billion lives."

"I held you in my hand, Wanderer. And you were so beautiful."

"It's a strange world," I murmured, more to myself than to the other native soul.

"The strangest," he agreed.

"You. Are. Not. Leaving. Me." His eyes blazed — burning brighter than I had ever seen them, blue flames.

"You never know how much time you'll have."

I was all alone in my head — exactly what I had once wanted. It made me feel lost.

"You stupid jackass," Ian said.

"Who's got the crush on a worm, bro? You gonna call me stupid?"

And it wasn't just ripping, but twisting and pulling in different directions. Because Melanie's heart broke, too, and it was a separate sensation, as if we'd grown another organ to compensate for our twin awarenesses. A double heart for a double mind. Twice the pain.

It's not the face, but the expressions on it. It's not the voice, but what you say. It's not how you look in that body, but the things you do with it. You are beautiful."

What was it that made this human love so much more desirable to me than the love of my own kind? Was it because it was exclusive and capricious? The souls offered love and acceptance to all. Did I crave a greater challenge? This love was tricky; it had no hard-and-fast rules — it might be given for free, as with Jamie, or earned through time and hard work, as with Ian, or completely and heartbreakingly unattainable, as with Jared.

Or was it simply better somehow? Because these humans could hate with so much fury, was the other end of the spectrum that they could love with more heart and zeal and fire?

"I am female," I complained. "That 'it' business is really getting on my nerves." [...]

"By whose definition?"

"How about by yours? In my species, I am the one that bears young. Is that not female enough for you?"

"That's just great," someone said under his breath. "We've got a bloody queen mother alien living with us. She could blow into a million new buggers at any moment."