Taken by an Alien Shifter: A sci-fi alien romance (Scouts of Somtach Book 2)

by Pascia Thrall

  Daezoth glances up at the sky.

  “Do you believe in life on other planets, Chayya?”

  “Aliens?” I stifle a laugh. “I don’t think I could cope with that. First zombies, then aliens? I’m pretty certain I’d have some sort of breakdown if aliens suddenly swooped down and beamed me up. Besides. I think I’d rather they just killed all the zombies with their powerful laser weapons, and left us humans to it.”

  “What if they don’t have powerful laser weapons?”

  “Ha.” I snort. “Of course they have powerful laser weapons. If they have the technology to travel across the universe, they’re going to have weapons.”

  Out of the corner of my eye I see Daezoth nod, and we continue to walk in silence.

  Aliens. Whatever next? Daezoth must be desperate if he’s thinking about aliens.

  But what if he’s right about the survivors? What if there are no other people? What if it were just me and Daezoth? What if we had sex, and I got pregnant? How would we care for a baby? Perhaps we shouldn’t settle down. Settling down will inevitably lead to sex, unless I’m misreading all the signs and he’s actually gay, then we’ll both just be celibate for the rest of our lives. But if there are no other people, we definitely shouldn’t be making more. What sort of punishment would that be for a child, to come into a world where the only other humans are your parents?

  That thought is enough to make me want to cry again. I look away so Daezoth doesn’t see and my gaze falls on a chemist.

  Condoms. That’s what we need.

  “Um. I’ve just thought of something I might need from here.” I give Daezoth a quick glance. “I’ll just be a minute, okay.”

  He frowns, but I dart away before he can say anything.

  “Wait here. Please.” I call over my shoulder.

  I want to be prepared. I don’t want to put him on the spot. He seems attracted to me, and even if he insists on some sort of long courtship thing, eventually we’re going to sleep together. Surely.

  The window has been completely smashed out, a few jagged pieces of glass around the edge, and I stride straight through. There’s no point using the door.

  Once inside it takes my eyes a moment to adjust to the gloom, but when they do I scan the signs hanging from the ceiling, trying to find where I might start my search.

  Family Planning.

  I guess that’s it. I pick my way through the debris, trying my best to avoid the shattered glass littering the floor. The Family Planning shelves are still standing, miraculously, but most of the contents have been swept onto the floor.

  I sift through the packets of lube, and pregnancy and ovulation tests.

  There’s one. One single condom, hiding amidst the rubble. But when I pick it up I see the package has been torn, the inside filled with dust.

  Gross. I drop it back on the pile.

  Surely there’s got to be more.

  Nothing.

  Then again….

  I pick up a box of pregnancy tests, and tear it open. There’s two inside. I tear open a few more boxes, remove the thin plastic sticks and shove them all into the side pocket of my bag. They might be necessary, one day.

  I stand, scanning the room. Where else might there be condoms?

  My gaze falls on a door with a sign that reads ‘Staff Only’. The storeroom? Worth a shot.

  I head on over, crunching glass underfoot. I’ve given up being careful.

  “Chayya?”

  I glance to the window to see Daezoth peering in.

  “Just a minute. I promise.”

  “I do not feel good about this, Chayya.”

  “All the zombies are across the otherside of town. I’ll be fine.” I bite my lip. I didn’t mean to snap at him. It just seems that everything has hit me all at once, all that I’ve lost, all that I could still lose, and this awful responsibility I have on my shoulders now, to not reproduce.

  I reach the door and turn the handle.

  It doesn’t budge.

  I push against it again. How ridiculous. Why won’t it open?

  I take a step back and throw my entire body weight against the door. There’s a crack, and a snap, and the door flies open as I stumble through, landing with a crash against the shelves opposite.

  “Ow.”

  “Chayya!”

  There’s a crunching as Daezoth enters the shop to look for me.

  I pull myself to my feet, rubbing my wrist where it jammed against the metal. “I’m all—”

  My words are cut short when a shuffle to my right reveals a zombie. I take a step away, but then something grips my hair and then a scream tears from my throat as a mouth clamps down on my shoulder, teeth piercing my skin.

  The last thing I see before my world fades to black is Daezoth’s wide eyes as he races towards me.

  Chapter 9

  My body is being jolted about.

  My shoulder feels wet, and my arm is burning.

  I open my eyes. Daezoth is carrying me. We’re running, full speed, along a narrow bush road.

  “You saved me?” My voice is a croak, and I’m not certain Daezoth hears, but then he glances down at me.

  He says nothing, his breath coming in gasps.

  I let my head fall back to rest against his chest and listen to his pounding heart.

  I wake again. My whole body burns.

  It’s dark, which is about a much as my eyes can register at the moment, because light flickers across Daezoth’s face, and I can’t make out anything else around him. He’s spooning some sort of broth down my throat.

  “Come on, Chayya. Hold on. Don’t let go yet.”

  I want to let go. I want the burning to stop, and the pain radiating out from my shoulder. In fact, I want this whole life to stop. On the alert for zombies every moment, no where to settle down, to rest, to stop.

  Surely the afterlife has got to be better than this, whatever it brings.

  Morning. I know because it’s too bright to open my eyes properly. Daezoth is carrying me again. I can’t imagine why. Where are we going that requires such a journey? Surely it would be better if we just went back to the upstairs of the fast food shop, and stayed there?

  “We’re here.”

  Daezoth’s words pull me from my doze.

  “Where?”

  “Safety.”

  I open my eyes but all is see is a long silver spaceship. I blink at it a few times, waiting for it to change into something recognisable, but it doesn’t.

  It’s a UFO. An alien spacecraft.

  I close my eyes. I must be delirious. The bite has affected my brain, and now I’m hallucinating. It must be from Daezoth’s question about aliens, just before I went looking for condoms.

  “Can you stand?”

  I shrug, and Daezoth lowers me to the ground, but the moment I try to take my own weight my head spins and my knees give way and I collapse amongst the dead leaves and bracken fern.

  Chapter 10

  When I wake again it’s to a gleaming silver room.

  The bed is narrow, and fitted with a soft white mattress, and there’s a small sink on the wall by the head of the bed.

  Other than that, it’s empty.

  I push myself up into a sitting position, blinking at the room before me.

  At first I don’t remember how I got here, but then it all comes tumbling back; my fear about being the last woman on Earth, the sudden certainty that I needed to make sure I never had children, and my foolish search for condoms.

  It nearly got me killed.

  And Daezoth. How did he save me?

  I bring a hand to my shoulder, expecting the worst, but there’s nothing.

  I’m in clean clothes, a loose-fitting white tunic, with a belt around the waist. My shoulder doesn’t pain me, and when I brush the sleeve of the tunic to one side I find the only sign of being bitten is a jagged oval shaped scar.

  How long have I been out?

  I stand carefully, my head spinning with the movement, and I have to
press both hands against the wall in support until the feeling passes.

  There doesn’t seem to be a handle on the door, so I press my hand against it, hoping I can slide it open, and the door sort-of hisses and slides backwards a little, and then to the side.

  Okay. Not what I was expecting, but cool, none-the-less.

  I remember the space ship I saw in my delirium, and shake my head.

  Nope. Not going to let that get to me.

  The corridor is more gleaming silver, and I don’t really know which way to go. There is a door opposite my room, and another a little further up, and another door at either end of the corridor. I hesitate, but then the door at one end of the corridor opens, and Daezoth steps through.

  My knees almost give way again at the relief at seeing him, and the way his face lights up it’s clear he’s happy to see me, too.

  If anything he’s even more attractive than he was before, and I wonder if it’s the near-death thing that makes me think so.

  The tone of his muscles is clear underneath his tight shirt, his jeans failing to hide the bulge in his pants.

  “You’re awake. I’m so glad.”

  “Um, yeah.” I twist my fingers around the tip of my ponytail, suddenly unsure what to do.

  He steps back from the door. “Come on through. I’ll grab you something to eat.”

  I don’t need to be asked twice.

  The next room is more of the same, though it has a small kitchen along one wall, and a wide open space with a table and chairs, and some low couches along the opposite wall.

  “How are you feeling?” He’s at the kitchen filling glasses with water.

  “Good.” I roll my shoulder. “It’s all healed. Like, no scabbing or anything.” A sudden bolt of fear pierces my chest. “How long have I been out?”

  He passes me the glass of water, and leads me to sit at a small table.

  I gulp down the water, wishing we had something stronger. I’m not sure I want to hear his answer.

  “About a week.”

  Daezoth says, holding my hand.

  “A week! Is that all?”

  He nods.

  “But I’ve healed so fast.”

  “That would be the salve I used on you.”

  “Salve. Right. And… where are we?”

  He bites his lip, his eyes searching out mine and suddenly I don’t want to hear answer.

  I want him to kiss me. I don’t want him to tell me things that will scare me, or make me question reality as I know it. I want to forget about all the strangeness in the world and fall into his embrace and pretend he’s my boyfriend and life is normal beyond the circle of our arms.

  “We’re on my ship.”

  Looks like Daezoth didn’t pick up on that.

  I nod. “Your ship.” I look down at the glass in my hand, and then back up to his face. “We’re not talking about a boat, are we?”

  He shakes his head. “No boat.”

  I swallow. I don’t want to say the word aloud. I don’t want my delirious hallucinations to be real.

  “It’s a space ship,” Daezoth confirms, and I close my eyes in an attempt to stop the swirling in my stomach and my head.

  “Are you reading my mind? Are you deliberately telling me all the things I don’t want to hear?”

  Daezoth frowns. “I am not reading your mind. I cannot. At least, not unless we are touching.”

  I stare up at him, waiting for the laughter, the joke.

  He’s deadly serious.

  “Right.”

  The apocalypse must have damaged him, somehow. It must have sent him into some imaginary place in his mind, where he felt he was safe. I don’t blame him. The whole thing has been terrifying, and who wouldn’t want to escape a world in which the living are all dead, and the dead are up and walking about.

  He takes my hand, but all I can think is that he thinks he can read me mind and I pull it away.

  His brow furrows, and his blue eyes fill with concern. “I know you said you couldn’t cope right now if you learned aliens were real, but you were injured and I didn’t know where else to go. I know how to heal you, here. I don’t know what I can use down there.”

  “Down there?” My head spins again, and I pray I heard him wrong. “What do you mean, ‘down there’?”

  “We’re out in space, Chayya.”

  I close my eyes and shake my head. “That’s not possible.”

  His thumb moves in small circles over the back of my hand. “The zombies followed us. They could smell your blood, no matter where I went. They were bashing against the outside of the ship, I had to bring us up. I have never seen anything like a zombie. I do not know what it is capable of. All I know is they are strong when they smell blood. I didn’t want to risk you again. I didn’t want to risk damage to the ship, that might prevent later escape. And then there are the communication issues.”

  “Communication issues?” I’m not sure that anything much that Daezoth says is sinking in.

  He nods. “When I landed, I lost all contact with my next-in-command. I need to let them know the situation is not as we expected.”

  “And have you? Let them know, I mean?”

  Daezoth shakes his head. “I wanted to wait until you were healed, first.”

  “And now that I’m healed?”

  He shrugs. “I will give you some time to adjust to what I have just told you. And then we will make our way back to the main ship.”

  “The main ship.” I echo his words. “I’m sorry, Daezoth. I can’t believe what you’re saying. I want to. But I can’t. You have a space ship, and have taken us into space, to go to the main ship where your next-in-command is? Do you realise how much this sounds like a movie?” I shake my head. “I just can’t believe it.”

  “Then let me show you.” Daezoth stands, and holds out his hand.

  I look from his hand to his face, fearful, but curious now, too. Could we really be out in space?

  He leads the way across the room to another door.

  I grip his hand as I follow close behind, what else is there to do?

  He presses his hand against the door which springs open, and my stomach lurches.

  Across from the door I a large, curved…. I don’t want to say window, because what is through it cannot be real. I don’t want it to be real.

  There’s the curve of the Earth below us, Australia front and centre draped in swirling cloud, and behind that the moon, and behind that a myriad of stars.

  I swallow. “This is…?”

  Daezoth watches me. “It is a screen.”

  “A screen. Like a computer screen?” Please be a computer screen.

  I glance at him, waiting for him to give in to the joke, but instead his brow is furrowed as he watches me.

  “Do you not see the way the clouds on your planet move?”

  My planet?

  I glance down. The clouds are moving. What’s more, I can see more of the Earth’s surface than I could from back at the door. My stomach lurches again.

  But if this is a screen, that would explain all of that. He must be some sort of techy geek, to set all of this up like this.

  I approach the screen. But as I move closer, I see more of the Earth below me. The same way I would if I actually were looking out a window. And when I reach it there isn’t the glare there should be from a computer screen, just glass, and space beyond.

  “We’re in a space ship.” The room spins, and I drop to my knees, Daezoth leaping forward to catch me before I hit the ground.

  “I’m okay.” His chest is firm under my hands. “I’ll be okay. I just… space travel?”

  He must be delusional. We both must be. There’s no other explanation. Space travel isn’t real, it’s not a thing people can do.

  Then again.

  I glance up at him. “They were talking about it, weren’t they? All those billionaires with their too much money, playing toys while the rest of the world starved.” I swallow, and shake my head. “I never though
t they’d actually developed it.”

  “Chayya?”

  I look at him. “So you’re a billionaire, are you? Escaping the madness with all the other billionaires by disappearing off into space while the rest of us suffer.”

  He shakes his head. “I am not a billionaire. I am a scout.”

  “A scout? Like a boy scout?”

  His brow furrows. “I am a male of the species, yes, but I am not a child.”

  “Right.” I guess the billionaires still need servants, too. He’s probably from a poor family, been sheltered his whole life. That’s why he seems a little strange. That doesn’t explain why he has his own ship. Then again, maybe he stole it, to come back to Earth. That would explain why he didn’t just bring me back here in the first place.

  My stomach churns and I feel like I’m going to throw up, but it’s not just the shock of the scene before me, it’s also because my stomach is empty.

  When was the last time I ate?

  I swallow against the twist in my gut and bring my gaze to Daezoth’s face. If I focus on this exact moment, and don’t think too much beyond it, I’ll get through. I just need something to ground me, so I can think straight, and food is going to help with that.

  “You mentioned breakfast?”

  Daezoth smiles, the furrow disappearing from his forehead. “I did.”

  My head floats above my body all the way back to the table.

  None of this feels real, and for a moment I wonder if I actually died out there, but then my stomach gurgles and I have to admit it’s unlikely.

  I’ve gone from hiding from zombies to being up in space. Two things I once thought were impossibilities.

  Well there you go. Guess I should’ve listened to my mum after all. ‘Never say never,’ she used to say.

  She wasn’t wrong.

  Chapter 11

  Daezoth’s breakfast is a bit like soggy porridge. It’s bland, though I force it down anyway. I need food, and this is undoubtedly food.

  Better still, it’s enough of a weight in my stomach to stop the floaty thing happening to my head, and I can finally think straight.

  “So. You’ve been living in space?”

  He nods.