The Alien Reindeer’s Redemption
A Winter Starr Book 8
Elin Wyn
Contents
Foreword
Ryant
Megan
Ryant
Megan
Ryant
Megan
Ryant
Megan
Ryant
Megan
Ryant
Megan
Ryant
Megan
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About the Author
Foreword
The authors of Starr Huntress were given a challenge: give readers a reindeer shifter in your holiday story. We all agreed to call our shifters "reilendeer" and decided they bring good cheer to the world around them... and then we went crazy!
You might notices differences about the world and abilities of the reilendeer from story to story, and that's because each author has put her own spin on the challenge.
Now it's time to grab your eggnog, cuddle up by the fire, and enjoy these steamy alien shifters.
<3 Elin
Ryant
“Greetings, sir.”
The old man sitting behind the counter of the small shop raised his eyes, one eyebrow cocked up, and folded the newspaper he was reading in half.
“Whaddya want?” he asked, a row of yellowed teeth showing between his lips.
He had a full head of white hair and an unkempt beard that reached down to his collarbone.
Judging by his worn appearance, he had to be an elder, someone whose experience allowed him to lead the other humans in his tribe.
“I’m looking for a reliable method of transportation,” I told him, hoping I was hitting all the right notes of human etiquette.
High Command had given me a data crystal stuffed with history, social rules, and guidelines for interacting with Terrans.
I’d kinda given it a brief glance.
I didn’t plan to be here long, and for such an uncivilized race, they sure had a lot of social rules and guidelines.
Boring.
“What the hell do I look like?” the old man grumbled. “A car salesman? A taxi driver?”
“You look old, sir,” I promptly replied, and his eyes flickered with annoyance.
Clearly, honesty wasn’t something humans valued around these parts. “I am to undertake a journey and, as an elder of this place, I humbly request your wise guidance.”
“Are you on drugs, kid?”
“Should I be on drugs?”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” the man growled, and his annoyance turned into a blend of fear and anxiety.
He moved fast, reaching for something underneath his counter, and then jumped to his feet, a primitive double-barreled weapon in his hands. “I don’t know if you’re drunk or if you’re high, but I want you to get the hell outta my store right now.”
As if to reinforce the point he was making, he pulled back the hammer on his weapon.
Skith.
Maybe I should have done more than skim those reports.
I only remembered a few scattered things about human interaction, but it seemed like I wasn’t exactly remembering the ones I needed to.
Oh, well.
Moving fast, I reached for the weapon and yanked it out of the man’s hands. I did it so fast that, when he tried to squeeze the trigger, his finger found nothing but empty air.
“Interesting,” I whispered, quickly disassembling the weapon, to find two red cartridges resting inside its barrels. Inside them were tiny spherical projectiles.
Shaking my head at the primitiveness of it all, I tossed the weapon onto the floor and turned my attention back to the old man.
By now, his eyes were wide with fear. “Please don’t hurt me.”
“I need a method of transportation,” I repeated, this time dropping all the politeness out of my voice.
This social dance had made me tired, and I was in no mood to be nice. I just wanted to get this over with so I could leave the planet as soon as possible. “Something reliable and strong.”
“Maybe...maybe you’re looking for a pickup truck?” he stammered.
“What’s that?”
He opened his mouth to answer, but then clamped his mouth shut and just pointed out the window. His trembling finger pointed toward a black vehicle in the corner of the parking lot. It had a set of wide, rough-looking wheels, and it looked sturdy enough to blast through a wall.
“That’s what you’re looking for,” the man spoke up.
Satisfied, I looked at him and made a conscious effort to pull my lips back, showing him my teeth. I wasn’t exactly sure, but I had a faint memory from the file that humans liked baring their teeth whenever they were pleased about something.
“I wish you long days, elder,” I said, then just spun around and left the cramped little store on the side of the road.
I made my way straight toward what the man had called a pickup truck, but quickly realized these human vehicles wouldn’t be as easy to pilot as I had expected. The doors refused to open, no matter how hard I yanked on the handle, and I had to resort to cruder tactics—using a long piece of metal wire, I fiddled with the lock until the latch popped.
I slid into the cockpit and tossed my pack behind me into the small storage space.
“Finally,” I grumbled, but I wasn’t quite done yet. It was fairly obvious how to operate the vehicle, but I had no idea how to activate it.
There didn’t seem to be a biometrics sensor or anything like that, and the electronics were sparse.
So, how did the humans turn the damn thing on? Sighing, I popped out a couple of panels on the dashboard until I found a tangle of wires. It took me almost an entire minute, but I eventually figured out how to hotwire the vehicle.
The engine growled as it woke up, and I allowed a grin to spread across my lips as I sped out of the parking lot.
“Thank you,” I said, waving with one arm as I saw three men running across the parking lot. They were yelling and shaking their fists at me, and one of them was even holding the gun from the store owner.
He fired twice, the sound of it echoing throughout the night, and I gave them one final wave before merging with the traffic.
Maybe some sort of primitive custom to salute those who were about to embark on a journey.
Who knew?
I wasn’t a cultural scientist.
I hadn’t traveled to this backwater on some xeno-archaeological expedition.
I was a reilendeer warrior on a mission.
Get in, get the item, get out.
That’s all that mattered.
Pushing all trivial concerns to the back of my mind, I focused on the task at hand.
I left the highway on the next off-ramp I saw, and twenty minutes later I was trying to navigate my way along a small two-lane mountain road.
Snow was falling all around, covering the road ahead in a thick curtain of gray sludge, and both the wipers and the high-potency headlights seemed to do little to improve visibility.
“Great,” I muttered under my breath. “Just freaking great.” If only I could use some of my Vondin tech instead of having to rely on all this primitive skith.
But orders were orders.
Until I retrieved the item, I had to behave like a prehistoric asshole.
As if to reinforce that thought, a red light suddenly started to blink on the dashboard, next to a crude pictograph of a rectangle with a tube coming out of its side.
This, at least, seemed fairly universal. The antique engine ran by a series of small, contained explosions powered by petrochemical
s.
I’d seen refueling tanks clustered outside the small store where the old man had been stationed.
Perhaps I should have spoken to him more.
Except he was irritating.
Thankfully, I found what I was looking for a few miles up the road. Bright neon lights cut through the snowstorm, and I left the road and drove into what looked like a rural gas station.
Attached to it was a squat little building, the words Joe’s Diner blinking in tired neon lights over the door. I stepped out of the truck to find a spindly old man in blue overalls looking at me. He was wearing a winter cap with a furry lining, the flaps on the side covering his ears.
“Need a refill, mister?” he asked me, his eyes taking me in. He looked slightly suspicious, and I quickly deduced that it was probably because of my attire—I was wearing a plain black t-shirt, jeans, and a pair of boots. Everyone I’d met so far had been hiding under sweaters and thick coats, which suggested that humans struggled with cold temperatures way more than I did.
There was a jacket on the seat of the truck, but I’d ignored it. I reached for it, then shrugged. It smelled of the old man with the ridiculous weapon.
Why would I care what these people thought?
Back to the matter at hand. “Yeah, a refill will do.”
“What ya gonna pay with? Cash or plastic?”
“Cash,” I answered promptly.
There had been nothing in my reports suggesting that humans were using plastic to conduct their transactions, and while I had noticed a variety of shaped plastic items loose in the truck, I had no idea of their respective values.
Reaching into my pocket, I grabbed a handful of crumpled bank notes, courtesy of the Vondin High Command replicators.
I looked down at them and, not sure of what the proper thing to do was, grabbed five notes marked with $100 and pushed them all into the man’s hands.
“Does that cover it?”
He just looked up at me, eyes wide and jaw slack. “Right, of course,” I said quickly, and pushed three more notes into his hands.
“Thank you so much, sir!” He whistled happily, stuffing the notes down the front pocket of his overalls. “Feel free to grab something to eat, mister. On the house!”
“Thank you.” After my weird experience in the last store, I was actually surprised at how polite humans could be.
To think that all I needed to do was push a few scraps of paper into their hands.
And Commander Darsh had had the nerve to reprimand me for not playing well with others. Shows how much he knew.
Satisfied with how things were going, I ventured inside the diner. I wasn’t exactly looking forward to the experience of human food but, just like my truck, I needed to refuel.
The hinges squealed as I pushed the door open, and I was immediately greeted by bells and a soft chorus of music.
Later on, we’ll conspire...
It came from a large machine in the corner, something I recognized as a jukebox.
Songs about conspiring by fires.
I should stay on my guard around the natives, even if I was making progress with their customs.
A large wooden counter stretched from one wall to the other, and a few worn tables littered the rest of the cramped little building. The sharp smell of caffeine hit me all at once, but I could also smell burnt oil in the air, the scent of it pungent and greasy.
“Caffeine, please.” Slapping one of the $100 notes on the counter, I eyed the woman standing behind it. She was a rotund little specimen with curly brown hair, and she was wearing a pink apron with the picture of some weird bird stamped on it. “The man outside said I could get anything that I wanted, but this is for your troubles.”
“You sure, hun?” she laughed, looking down at the note without picking it up. “Coffee’s free, you know? You can just order a meal and grab a cup with it.”
“That’s for your troubles,” I repeated, and she just shrugged and stuffed the note into her apron. Moving fast, she produced a cup from behind the counter and poured a dark liquid into it. I wasn’t used to taking my caffeine like that, but I didn’t hesitate before putting the cup to my lips. It was surprisingly good.
“What about dinner, hun? You gonna eat something?”
“Zavin herbs, if you have them,” I mechanically replied, and only then did I remember there likely weren’t any Zavin herbs here on Earth. “Fresh vegetables, if you have them,” I quickly continued, and the woman knitted her eyebrows together before shaking her head.
“You one of those boys who only eat vegetables, huh?” she asked me, and I could tell she wasn’t too excited about it. “Seriously, for the life of me, I can’t see what’s wrong with a fine steak. Your generation has been too pampered, that’s what I think. My father would have whooped me if I went home and told him I’d just have beans and sprouts for dinner.”
She continued her tirade even as she walked into the kitchen, presumably to fix me dinner, but I no longer heard a word of it.
To put it simply, her speech was too primitive and boring. The Vondin didn’t consume meat out of respect for the spark of life in every sentient being.
Sure, we were also known for beating into a pulp everyone that stood in our way, and we had the best tech in the galaxy when it came to low-profile assassination ops...but, hey, at least we didn’t eat our targets.
That had to count for something, right?
Bored, I looked around the small diner as I waited for my food.
And that’s when I saw her.
Sitting by herself in the corner, the woman had long auburn hair with faint pink streaks. It fell gently over her shoulders, framing her delicate face as if she was the centerpiece in a painting.
Her eyes, smart and hungry, were a vivid gray, a color I hadn’t expected to find in a human.
Although she looked a bit thinner than what she should be, she was absolutely stunning.
Keep it together, I warned myself.
I hadn’t come to Earth to mingle with the natives, had I?
No, I was here on a mission, and I wouldn’t allow myself to get distracted. No matter what, I would keep my focus and—
And here I was, looking at her once more.
Watching the lush curve of her lips.
Skith.
Megan
I didn’t realize I was staring until I heard the french fry I had been holding clatter back down onto my plate.
I dragged my eyes away from the stranger who’d just entered the diner.
I’d never seen a man like that before. He stood out against the tatty holiday decorations strewn across the diner as if he were wearing lights himself.
Even from across the room, I could tell he was well built. I couldn’t tell much else about him other than the fact that his eyes were dark and his shaggy hair needed a slight trim.
He didn’t look scruffy or unkempt.
Just a little wild.
I glared at the sad pile of french fries on my plate and fought the urge to stare at him again.
What the hell was wrong with me?
I shouldn’t be drooling over some guy in a glorified truck stop.
I shouldn’t have noticed him in the first place.
I couldn’t afford to get distracted now.
My stomach clenched as the familiar guilt hit me.
God, I was a terrible mother. How could I have let this happen?
My five-year-old daughter, Arabella, was missing.
She wasn’t a runaway. She didn’t get lost.
It was so much worse than that. She’d been kidnapped.
The police still didn’t believe me, no matter how much evidence I shoved in their smug, condescending faces.
The worst part was, I even knew the kidnapper’s name, and they still refused to help me.
Dr. Theodore Bonven.
Her father.
How do I know this?
I poured every last penny I had in my savings account, which was meager to begin with, into
hiring a PI.
I’d never been wealthy. Not even close.
Despite that, I’d done my best to give Arabella a good life.
She wanted for nothing. No matter what, I always found a way to get her what she needs.
Now she was in the hands of her dickwad father.
She could be cold, scared, or hungry, and what was I doing?
Making eyes over my french fries at some stranger with a jawline that could cut diamonds.
Fuck, I’d give anything for a burger right now.
I kept shifting between being too sick with worry to eat and being ravenous enough to eat an entire cow. My stomach grumbled.
All I’d had to eat today was a packet of peanut butter crackers that tasted chalky.
I picked up a french fry and placed it on my tongue. I felt the individual granules of salt, but couldn’t taste anything.
I chewed and swallowed, even though my body had already switched back to being repulsed by the thought of food.
I needed to eat. French fries weren’t exactly packed with nutrition, but they were the cheapest food on the menu and I wouldn’t be able to eat again until tomorrow.
I had carefully budgeted this trip. I knew exactly how many days it would take to reach my daughter at her father’s compound. I calculated the exact amount of gas it would take and how much I could spare per day on food.
I sipped my water, hoping it would help the perpetual dryness in my throat. A soda would’ve been a luxury purchase.
Arabella will get as much soda as she wants when I get her back.
The holiday carols on the jukebox stabbed at me, highlighting the ache in my chest.
We’d never been apart on the holidays, never been apart for even a day.
My daughter loved holidays. She loved dressing up and making everything a game.
I thought of the compound where Ted had supposedly taken her.
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