Owned by the Alien: A Scifi Alien Romance (Fated Mates of the Titan Empire Book 1)

by Tammy Walsh

  Perhaps she could even be the One.

  I recalled the expression that rose to my father’s face every time he looked at my mother. Even now, I felt the absolute love and devotion he had for her. I was beginning to feel that with Alice too.

  Absolute and total devotion.

  My mood darkened that these assholes were threatening to take her away from me.

  No one came between a Titan and his mate.

  No one.

  I entered the engine bay. Spread out before the emergency escape pods was the rest of my illustrious crew. A dozen members in total, a mixed bunch from all four corners of the galaxy.

  Standing at their head, the largest and physically most powerful of them all. Horn Tusk.

  Rattigan left my side and joined the others. Stryder was the only member who stood at my side. The only true friend among them.

  “You called me here?” I said, addressing Horn Tusk.

  He stepped forward and spat on the floor. “I did.”

  “Tell me your demands and maybe we can come to an agreement,” I said. It was the typical response in situations like this.

  “You know what our demands are,” Horn Tusk said. “We want to abduct children. They’re easier to transport and masters pay us premium prices. You are a good smuggler, a good captain. But we cannot continue to bust our asses and take such high risks when we could be earning so much more.”

  I made eye contact with each member of the crew. “You know I will not back down on this issue. If it was anything else, anything at all, I would budge. But not this.”

  Some of the crew looked genuinely sorry.

  Horn Tusk shrugged his cape off and let it flutter to the floor, revealing half a dozen blades strapped to his broad back. He pulled two free. “I was hoping you would say that.”

  I limped forward and withdrew my sword. It sang in my hands. Despite all the technology in the galaxy, it was in old weapons that we put our faith. Too many species had developed defense systems to counteract advanced weapons, too many safety protocols with DNA scanners and voice activation. Swords and hammers and bows required only a skilled hand.

  I drew a sword breaker in my offhand. As I pulled it out, I intentionally dropped it. The most mutinous of the crew chuckled. I bent down to pick it up.

  “You appear a little frail, Captain,” Horn Tusk spat. “I’ll try to make this quick. I don’t like to make creatures suffer.”

  Challenges needn’t end in death, but capitulation. But such was the personality of most smuggler captains that they resolutely refused to surrender.

  I was no different.

  Horn Tusk swung his swords around. I blocked them both and rolled to one side.

  Horn Tusk rolled his neck and shoulders, warming up. He slashed at me again, one blade slicing a gash in the wall. I caught that blade in my sword breaker and twisted it, snapping the blade in two and parried the other.

  Horn Tusk reached for another sword on his back and came at me again.

  I glanced at the doorway. I hoped Alice would return soon. Eventually, I had to show my hand and defeat him. But the longer I danced, the more tired I became.

  I ducked and then stepped to one side. His blades swung across, faster than I expected. I barely managed to parry and used the situation to my advantage. I struck at the weak joint under his arm. It wasn’t a strong blow but enough to slice his flesh.

  I couldn’t keep dancing, but I could slow him down.

  He howled in anger and more than a little pain and swiped his arm around to decapitate me. I ducked and rolled. I came up onto my feet and stumbled…

  It wasn’t on purpose.

  Oh no…

  The sickness was returning.

  Blood oozed from Horn Tusk’s armor and splattered over the floor. It was a bad sign. His chances of becoming the captain were waning by the second. His piggy black eyes came to the same conclusion but he would not back down.

  “I think the human female has weakened the captain,” Rattigan said, curling his lip in disgust. “When we went to his quarters, he was in bed with her.”

  “I bet she looked as sweet as a peach,” Horn Tusk said.

  “She looked fine, if you like hairless beasts,” Rattigan said.

  “I bet she was juicy,” Horn Tusk said, keeping his beady eyes on me. “I can’t wait to taste her.”

  They were goading me into making a mistake, to lash out in anger…

  It was working.

  Liquid hot bile bubbled at the back of my throat. I stepped forward, taking an offensive line. The limp I harbored vanished and even the pain of the sickness faded into a dull murmur. I couldn’t keep up pretenses any longer.

  I roared and my blade flashed. Horn Tusk parried the first with ease but his injured arm was slow and I knocked the blade out of his hoof and caught the second in the swordbreaker. A twist of my wrist and it snapped clean off, clattering to the floor.

  Horn Tusk moved to grab another pair of blades but I was ready for him, and jabbed him in the gut with the pommel of my blade and smashed him across the mouth with the cross-guard.

  I aimed the tip of my blade at Horn Tusk’s neck. “Do you yield?”

  Horn Tusk raised his hooves. But Rattigan wasn’t done goading me yet.

  “Do you think the human female is still upset about the death of our slave?” Rattigan said. “The one we call Maisie?”

  “What are you doing?” Horn Tusk said, grunting in the direction of his compatriot. “He’ll run me through if he learns the truth! I yiel—”

  “Not yet!” Rattigan said.

  “If I learn what?” I said.

  Rattigan sneered and edged closer. “If you discovered Horn Tusk is responsible for her death.”

  Horn Tusk, despite his size, turned away and stared at the floor.

  “What is he talking about?” I said.

  “She… She wasn’t supposed to be there,” Horn Tusk said. “She wasn’t supposed to be in the kitchen. The young human female was meant to be alone. But Maisie wouldn’t let me pass, wouldn’t stand down.”

  The truth knocked the wind from my lungs. “You killed her?”

  “No!” Horn Tusk said. “I would never harm her. She’s the best cook I’ve ever known. I didn’t hurt her. When I tried to move past her and into the pantry, she suddenly clutched her chest and fell down. I didn’t touch her, I swear.”

  Maisie was the closest thing to a mother the crew had ever known.

  I wiped the spittle from the corner of my mouth. Anger surged in me. Not only because they had tried to kill Alice but because their selfish greed had led to the death of the kindest woman I’d ever known.

  I roared and ran at Horn Tusk, blade poised to skewer him the way his appearance in the kitchen had skewered Maisie’s heart.

  And then I froze, poised to deliver the final blow.

  Horn Tusk clenched his eyes shut, unable to watch as the blade hovered less than an inch from his eye.

  I breathed deeply, struggling to comprehend why anyone would want to harm Alice or Maisie. They were innocents.

  “Yield,” I said.

  “Wha—What?” Horn Tusk said. “You’re not going to kill me?”

  “I said, yield!” I barked, threatening my sword’s edge once more.

  “I yield! I yield!” Horn Tusk said.

  I backed away, fearful I might carry through with the hate and the venom poisoning my veins. The crew had succeeded in turning my soul black, even if it wasn’t with the tool they’d expected.

  The news of Maisie’s death was a gut punch. I couldn’t bear it.

  “We’re done here,” I said. “We’re finished.”

  “We’re not done here,” Rattigan sneered. “I can see the weakness in you. You can barely stand on your feet.”

  Horn Tusk struggled to his feet and moved to block Rattigan, who shrugged him off.

  “I refuse to let any more profits slip through my claws just because of our weak captain’s conscience,” he said.


  He drew a sword and aimed it at me. “I Challenge you, Captain.”

  Rattigan was a more opportunistic foe than Horn Tusk. He was quick, mean, and always quick to seize an opportunity. A true survivor.

  Meanwhile, I limped from the sickness, struggling to keep myself upright. This time, it wasn’t an act, and by the dangerous glint in his eye, I think he knew that.

  He came at me, swinging viciously. He stabbed and probed, checking my defenses. I fended him off successfully but sustained a shallow cut above my eyebrow. His tail flashed and wrapped around my limping ankle. Too slow to re-balance, I swung as I fell, giving me a fraction of a second to see his next attack before responding.

  He leaped and raised the blade in both hands, following through with a solid thrust.

  I rolled to one side at the last moment.

  The blade’s tip cut a swathe through the metal floor, joining a pair formed in earlier Challenges.

  I couldn’t keep up with his attacks. It was a new experience for me, feeling inferior to another fighter.

  Rattigan screamed, “Hah!” as he followed up with one strike and then a second.

  And this time, I would be done.

  “Hold it right there!”

  Rattigan blinked, hesitating.

  It was enough.

  I raised my blade and deflected his attack from me. I ground my teeth and rolled toward a familiar pair of boots marching into the engine bay.

  My heart leaped. There she stood, my savior.

  My hero.

  My lover.

  She cradled a blaster in one hand as if it’d been tailor-made for her. She aimed it squarely at Rattigan’s ugly pinched grill.

  He growled but didn’t lower his weapon. “Interruptions are not allowed during the Challenge!”

  “This isn’t an interruption,” Alice spat. “This is an intervention!”

  Rattigan frowned at the distinction. Most of the crew were. I certainly was.

  Hurried footsteps rushed up behind her. She must have bolted as fast as her legs could carry her to reach me so far ahead of the others. She’d saved my life.

  As the men entered behind her, my grin of hope curdled by the heat of despair.

  They were not our rescuers. They were our doom.

  Almost twenty-four hours earlier, after consuming the first meal devoid of the poisonous Absor I’d had in three weeks, we were interrupted by a knock at the door. It was Stryder, informing me we’d picked up a distress beacon a few minutes ago and wanted my input into how we should proceed.

  I played my little game on Alice, almost managing to get her to undress me, before proceeding up onto the deck. There, I learned, just a few short hours from our position, was a ship in distress. Wrapped within the beacon was a recording of the call to action.

  “Play message on the screen,” I said.

  The captain of a Vestoil ship appeared onscreen. The image was grainy and cut out every few seconds. His crew worked at their consoles in the background.

  “I am Captain Morstaad of the Vestoil Cruiser, Raesdok, identification number: 81634152. We have suffered a critical engine malfunction after we were attacked by a merciless brigand of pirates. We were able to fight them off but our engine suffered severe damage. By our calculations, in less than a week, it will explode. The best we can do is patch it up. I doubt we’ll be alive long enough for anyone to hear this message, but if you do, perhaps there is still time. You can find our coordinates embedded within this message. Please save us. We need your help.”

  The message turned fuzzy and cut out.

  “What do you think?” I said to Stryder.

  “The message is less than a day old,” he said. “They could still be out there. And if they’ve been fighting with pirates, there’s a lot of potential salvage material.”

  “It’ll take us off course,” I said.

  “Only by a few hours. We could clean up with this haul.”

  “Their engine could explode at any moment,” I said. “You heard him.”

  “He gave us a timeline. Assuming it’s marginally accurate, it ought to give us enough time to evacuate them, collect as much salvage as we can, expel the fuel cell from the damaged engine, and take one or both of the ships with us.”

  “And the survivors?” I said.

  Stryder shrugged. “We can hold them for ransom. The Vestroil always pay well for captured personnel.”

  I pressed my lips between my fingers. It wasn’t every day you came across not just one but two damaged ships. The earnings were considerable.

  I felt the sickness beginning to make a fresh sweep over me once again. I nodded. “Do it. And you take point on the mission. I don’t want any mistakes. We need to be in and out as soon as possible.”

  I got up from the chair and marched toward the exit.

  “Sir?” Stryder said.

  He sidled up to me and glanced over his shoulders at the other men. He lowered his voice so they couldn’t hear him. “Why are you allowing the human female to walk freely among the crew? She might be a spy or worse.”

  “She’s not a spy,” I said, my lips quirking up at the thought of her and her gorgeous curves. I hoped my fun and games with her might become something more one of these days, but I wouldn’t count my chickens. “And she’s not capable of anything worse.”

  “Her existence among the crew might be somewhat… distracting. They haven’t seen a healthy female for many months. I wouldn’t want to take the risk they might… act on their baser impulses, sir. It’s safer if we return her to her pod.”

  And let the crew continue poisoning me? I don’t think so. “I appreciate your concerns, Stryder. I know you have her welfare in mind. But she’s staying where she is. She’ll be leaving us shortly anyway.”

  Stryder nodded. He thought I was referring to the master we were meeting in two days, not returning to her home planet.

  Sometimes you needed to keep secrets from your crew for everyone’s sake. Including your best men.

  I returned to my quarters to recover from the sickness already beginning to steal over me. Stryder later reported he’d brought the survivors on board and had placed them in the pods. The pirate ship was too damaged to salvage but we towed the Vestoil vessel behind us.

  No shots were fired and everything went without a hitch.

  The humans had a good expression. I accessed it in my translation strip:

  When something appeared to be too good to be true, it very often was.

  The armed units entering the engine behind Alice were not Vestroil. I knew this because I’d seen their kind before. They were Changelings, capable of mimicking the shape and size of any creature they came in contact with.

  How did I know this? It was in the way they moved, the way they walked and talked.

  Most of all, it was in the way their blaster pistols shifted from the mutinous crew and to me and Alice.

  “Not us!” Alice said. “Them! They’re the bad guys!”

  I pressed my hand on her arm comfortingly and shook my head.

  “I don’t understand,” Alice said. “What’s going on?”

  Hot sweat that had nothing to do with the battle dampened my brow. “They’re not Vestroil. They’re Changelings.”

  The Changelings morphed, shifting shape into mirror reflections of the mutinous crew. They looked identical unless you knew what you were looking for.

  I turned to Stryder. “How could you do this to me?”

  Stryder dropped his subservient demeanor and stood with his back straighter, his chin higher. “I always expected you to change your mind on transporting children. They’re merchandise, like anything else we transport. But you just wouldn’t let go. I knew I would have to step in and force you out. I found the crew was very open to betraying you. Money is a more convincing ally than morals.”

  “I don’t understand,” Alice said. “You betrayed him?”

  “My dear girl, please try to keep up,” Stryder snapped, pacing toward the Changelings. “Yo
u were the only unforeseen problem. You were never supposed to wake up. I suppose the galaxy will throw us little curve balls now and then.”

  I couldn’t believe that of all my crew, Stryder would be the one to betray me most. He was their leader. He organized all this. He might have been smaller than the other crewmates but he was one hell of a lot smarter.

  “Why are you working with the Changelings?” I said.

  “I’ve been working with them ever since I joined your crew,” Stryder said. “It pays to work hand-in-hand with your paymasters.”

  Stryder leaned in close so no one but me could hear. “And once I have enough credits to set up my own colony, I’ll call the Enforcers and tell them I’ve been working undercover this entire time. And they’ll believe me, do you know why? Because I’m not the captain. I didn’t make the decisions. I’ll collect the reward and get off scot free. The rest of the crew will work in a camp somewhere on the outer rim.” He leaned closer to whisper in my ear. “But don’t tell them that.”

  “You asshole!” Alice said, swinging her hand, open-palmed at his face.

  He moved, serpent fast, and snatched her arm out of the air. “I admire your passion. Is that what he fell for?”

  He brushed a hand over her skin and I growled. Before I could take a step forward, the Changelings raised their pistols.

  “Oh yes,” Stryder said. “I think I’m going to enjoy breaking her. I suspect the entire crew will.”

  The crew chuckled and the Changelings mimicked them.

  I glanced at the open emergency escape pod door. It was the only way out of this situation… but it was too far to reach.

  “Your plan has already failed,” I said. “Unless I yield, there’s no way you or anyone else can command this ship.”

  “Unless you yield or you die,” Stryder corrected. “Either way, the end result will be the same.”

  He nodded to Rattigan, who stepped toward me.

  “You’re making a mistake,” I said, backing toward the escape pod. “He’s going to betray you the moment he has enough credits.”

  “Only if he can live with a blade in his back,” Rattigan hissed, running a finger along his sword. “And you’ll get to watch from heaven.”