Now we have another problem on our hands. Kagin's guards crack their knuckles, each of them pulling out a blaster and pointing them right at Becca and me. The Capcha Cons are a gang of highly skilled fighters and serve as Kagin's perfectly curated little army. Luckily he didn't bring the whole gang, or this place would've been over capacity and a fire hazard for that matter.
"So, are you sure I can't smooth talk our way out of this one?" I ask Becca. She rolls her eyes at me. "It's good to have you back," she says. "I forgot you're equipped with the impeccable ability to make plans." "Wow, and I forgot you're equipped with impeccable sarcasm."
A blaster fires at us before we have any time to assess our situation, and I hook my arm around Becca’s waist to pull her out of the way. We tumble to the ground, the crowd around us now screaming with terror as the room falls into a complete panic. Alani’s guards tear from their posts, shouting warnings of their no-weapons policy that Kagin and his guards have failed to follow.
Kagin, despite claiming to be one of Alani's allies, allows the Capcha Cons to attack Alani's guards, and soon laser blasts are ricocheting off of the walls. Pieces of wall crumble from the ceiling to the floor, and Becca and I make a run for it to dodge them. It's a relief to have her back at my side, and if we make it out of here alive I'll have to concoct one hell of an apology to make up for all of this.
Becca slides across the floor, gathering a blaster from a fallen guard. “Here,” she says while chucking it into my arms. “I’m already armed.”
“With what?” I ask. Becca holds up a long baton. “Quin’s new present,” she says proudly.
“Strange, I really thought it’d be more like the reference. You know, like a baseball bat?”
Becca shrugs as she swings her baton right in the face of a grimy Capcha Con. He goes down with a moan, his body twitching as he hits the floor. “Seems to work fine to me,” she beams. Gods, I love this woman. Some of the gang members are surrounding us again, regrouping after their brief distraction with Alani’s guards. I roll to the side, the clanging rounds of my blaster shooting out around me. The blasts make contact with some of them.
“Falax!” I hear Becca cry. I turn around to see her being overtaken by one of them, a muscular female with snail-like eyes. I rush towards them, grabbing the stalks of the enemy’s eyes and pulling her off of my wife. It’s probably the grossest things I’ve ever touched, besides Alani of course.
“There’s a lot more here than I thought,” Becca shouts over the gunfire. It seems like Alani has taken her security to another level as sirens begin to blare. At this point most of the guests have begun to clear out, spilling through the enormous doorway like frantic ants. It’s just us and a whole lot of baddies crammed into one room now, and the air is growing thick with tension. I can feel someone latching onto my back, and I swivel around to toss them from my shoulders. Another is grabbing my legs, then my arms.
But Becca steps in, swinging her baton like an absolute madwoman. It almost makes me a little terrified when I think about the conversation we’ll have to have after this fight. I feel the claws of the enemy tearing at my nice tux as Becca’s baton makes contact with his face with a sickening crunch. He falls to the ground, and I’m able to twist and turn until my back is on the ground. The weight of everyone starts to crush my lungs, making breathing nearly impossible.
A blaster pings off of a nearby table, the deadly bolt whizzing right over me as it hits someone’s chest. My chest feels even tighter once the limp body falls on top of me. “Am I going to have to keep saving you all night?” Becca shouts as she wrangles the bodies, living and dead, off of me. Once I’m free, I swing my fist into the nearest Capcha Con still wrapped around my legs. “I don’t know,” I reply with a shrug. “I think I’m doing alright for myself.”
Suddenly, I hear an incredibly loud whoosh from nearby and roll with Becca out of the way as an enormous cloud of fire barrels towards us. "What the hell was that?" Becca gasps as she looks towards the source. The fighting seems to slow as everyone including the Capcha Cons turns to look at the top of the enormous staircase.
I didn't think Alani could be any more of a disgusting monster than she already is. But once I see her standing there, brandishing a giant flamethrower, her body completely transformed into crazy spider mode, my mind begins to change. Her long spindly legs bend out in grotesque angles from an oval-shaped thorax. What was once a beautiful alien girl is now a treacherous creature. Her jaws are completely unhinged, spreading out to reveal hundreds of rows of sharp teeth. If I had known she could become this terrifying, I definitely wouldn't have gone home with her on that night long ago.
“How dare you cause this commotion at my gala!" She cries, her high musical voice now a demonic growl. She pulls the trigger on the flamethrower, sending a spiral of flame into the air above her. Even from the bottom of the stairs, we can all feel the heat from the blast wrapping around us.
“Capchas, pull back,” I hear Kagin announce. The Capcha Cons start to back out of the room, but Alani rushes down the steps at an incredible speed. It’s eery to see her many legs clicking furiously against the tiled floor as she looms high above Kagin. “I don’t think so, Kagin,” she says. “Don’t forget, your little gang here also took part in this commotion.” Dozens of guns point in her direction, followed by more guns pointing at those guns. “Looks like we’re equally matched,” Kagin says, glancing nervously at Alani’s guards. “Why don’t you and I both call this off? After all, we are friends, aren’t we? I’ll even lend a hand in destroying those two rapscallions.” He gestures to Becca and me, but Alani’s not buying it. “I know you just want these gems,” she says, holding a hand over her ribcage. “This has nothing to do with friendship.”
With lightning speed, she swivels around, breathing her pheromones on the Capcha Cons. One by one they start to swoon, dropping their weapons limply at their sides. Kagin smiles knowingly at her. "It's hard to fall for your wiles when I'm not attracted to women in the first place." "Oh, I know where you stand, Kagin," Alani smirks. "I just needed to get rid of your firepower."
Kagin’s eyes grow saucer wide. Alani was right. For being one of the most feared mobsters in the galaxy, he’s nothing without his cronies to back him up. He turns to run, but his massive body prevents him from even making it a few steps away from Alani. In moments, he’s surrounded by a massive wall of flame that engulfs him completely. We can hardly hear his anguished cries over the sound of the fire as it turns him to crusted ash.
“Holy shit, did we just lose our client?” Becca whispers to me. I only stare in horror at the dark splotch on the tile that was once the all mighty Kagin. “It looks to be that way,” I say with a nod. As Alani turns to face us, pointing the nozzle of her flamethrower in our direction, I wished that we hadn’t said anything.
“Oh, you thought you wouldn’t get your turn?” She asks as she wags a bony finger at Becca. “This little homewrecker decided to make a surprise visit and steal my Falax away from me!”
“Hey! Don’t talk to my wife like that!” I shout, but Becca holds her hand out in front of me to stop talking. “Excuse me, but I’m the homewrecker?” She asks, fury rising in her voice. “You kept my husband hostage during your entire relationship! Not to mention you’re the one that hypnotized him to come here in the first place. You didn’t think his wife would even try to come and pull him back out of your nasty clutches?”
“Wait,” I say. “Alani, we had an entire relationship?” The horror begins to sink in my chest. How long had I been out after the first time I had met her? All I can remember is waking up from a trance in another one of her strange sex dungeons and escaping as if nothing had happened. Alani averts her pure-black eyes away from me. “Maybe like a few months?” She says nonchalantly.
“A FEW—“ I can’t even comprehend how I had lost such a huge chunk of my life. I place myself between Alani and Becca, reaching on the floor to grab a blaster from a fallen enemy.
"What are you doing?"
Becca asks. "I'm going to give this crazy bitch a piece of my mind for wasting my life!" I shout. Of course, my hot-headedness is getting the best of me again, and without another thought I find myself running madly towards Alani, jumping out of the way as she fires another blast at me.
“Please don’t do this, darling,” Alani pleads, but it’s no use for her to beg now that she doesn’t look like an innocent beauty. “I’m not your darling,” I clarify as I raise my blaster, firing a shot into one, then another of her spider legs. She rears back, swinging a clawed hand at me. It catches on my shoulder, latching into the fabric of my clothes and pierces into my skin.
I cry out as she picks me up and flings me as if I were a tiny insect. My body crashes clumsily into a decorative set of vases nearby. Becca rushes for her as well, swinging her baton into another one of Alani’s legs. Alani groans as she swipes and misses Becca’s throat. One swing of her vicious claws is all it takes to end one of our lives. She stomps the remainder of her legs hard into the ground, piercing straight into the tiles as she skitters towards me.
She lifts me high into the air, her face once again inches from mine. I can feel the familiar dizziness of her pheromones as they swirl around in my nostrils. I fight against the desires, the intrusive thoughts, everything that she's using to try to convince me again that I'm in love with her. "You know, Falax," she says. "I didn't keep you because you were cute. You just happened to be the strongest prey I could find. Your energy can feed me for weeks at a time. It's like you're my little miracle pill, keeping me young. Keeping me…beautiful," she caresses her own mutated face.
“Put him down, you scum!” Becca shouts. Alani’s head darts to look at her, but her claws tightly fasten around my neck. “Or else what?” She challenges.
“Or else you’ll lose a lot more than your legs!”
Becca’s eyes travel from mine to Alani’s as she raises her baton and charges. Still clutching onto me, Alani skitters out of the way, blasting at Becca with another wall of flame. I can’t call out to her because I’m nearly choking to death between Alani’s fingers.
I struggle under her grip, swinging my legs furiously. But Alani still holds tightly to me, keeping me for her after-party snack. I watch helplessly as Becca dodges another attack, disappearing behind a thick trail of fire. Alani stumbles back as Becca is able to knock her off of her balance. I desperately want to keep watching, but everything grows dark as my vision falters, and I can only hear the commotion happening below.
“Hang on Falax!” Becca’s voice echoes in my mind, followed by another whoosh of Alani’s flamethrower. I’m not sure how well I can follow her instructions as an overwhelming dizziness surrounds me. I hear Becca cry out. She’s been burned, and I can’t do anything to save her. It’s over now, just the sound of Alani cackling as she’s about to whisk me away again.
But then, piercing through the darkness is a blinding blue light. I struggle to open my eyes just enough, only to feel myself falling on the cold tiled floor. My limp body rolls to a stop, and I can finally breathe and see what's going on. The light is coming from Becca, from the baton in her hands as it shifts into something else.
It’s a massive metal baseball bat, glowing with electric energy, blue lightning radiating all around it. Becca clutches it in both of her hands, and in one glorious powerful swing, it cracks against Alani’s ribcage. A massive explosion erupts in between them, knocking them off of their feet. Alani crumbles into a heap on the floor, her cabinet-like chest hanging open in a grotesque fashion.
As Becca helps me to my feet, Alani tries to scamper away, hiding her face. "Get away from me!" She snarls, but her voice is as weak as her body. "Funny," I say. "I should have said that the first night we met." I walk towards her, reaching right into the gelatinous material in her chest, and pulling out the glass tube of what we'd been trying to obtain for so long. The Hearts of Reina glitter in my palm, and for the first time in a while I can hear the sound of their value. "Thanks so much for keeping them safe for us," Becca says. "But I think we'll take it from here."
Alani screams profanities at the both of us, but Becca silences her with another swing of her bat. We watch in horror as Alani’s body twists and tangles, her face shriveling up until her entire being disintegrates into dust. A strange glowing orb swirls up her throat and out of her mouth, floating directly towards me. I try to duck out of the way, but it circles around me until I breathe it up through my nose. I feel like I can run a marathon all of a sudden, there is so much energy flowing through me. It must have been the power that Alani had been feeding off of. What a relief to have it back in my system.
Becca falls to the floor with exhaustion, along with the confused group of Capcha Cons and guards that were all under Alani’s spell. “We got them,” she sighs with relief.
“Now if only we had a client to give them to,” I say. Becca exchanges a knowing glance with me.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” She asks.
"Only if you're thinking we should definitely keep these for ourselves?"
“That’s exactly what I was thinking.”
I lean down to kiss her, long and slow. My heroine.
EPILOGUE
BECCA
Marriage isn't a picnic. I found that out the hard way. But by confronting Alani I learned that there's so much more to our love than by what we can take from each other. It wasn't an easy discussion to have once we got back to our ship, but I truly understand that Falax would never do anything to hurt me and that there's a huge difference between an ex and a vengeful bitch that just needed to suck the energy out of him.
Now, when I look into Falax’s eyes I know that I’ve made the right choice, and I’d go to every end of the galaxy if it meant I could be his co-pilot for life. We’ve saved each other’s asses more times than we can count, but not just from evil henchmen or contracts gone awry. Falax saved me from an empty life, and now every day we get to live an adventure.
I'm sitting on a glittering rock at the bottom of an enormous waterfall. Falax and I found this place while roaming through the wilderness on the beautiful forest resort on the planet Tella. It's the best that our newfound riches could buy.
Falax stands in the pool of water, running his hands tenderly against my bare thighs. My gown is light and slightly wet from our mild trek from our bungalow. He lifts the fabric gently up my legs as he kisses my inner thigh, his other hand reaching to caress my back.
As his hand moves further up my leg, he begins to explore. Lightly running his fingertips in between my legs, he spreads apart my throbbing lips and feels the warmth of my vulva. I shudder as he gradually inserts himself further inside me, searching my walls. My heart pounds as he curls his finger softly back and forth. I nearly fall from my seat just so I can get closer to him, wanting to feel him deeper inside of me, to fill me with so much more.
He lifts up my skirts, about to insert his head between my thighs. But I stop him. “What’s wrong?” he asks. I glance up towards our bungalow, soft twinkling string lights glowing from its open windows. “Let’s take this somewhere else,” I suggest. “Where we can get really naughty.” “Ooh, what’s on your agenda?” Falax asks as he raises an eyebrow and bites his lip with hungry excitement. “You, me, very naked, and a few other things that I won’t mention,” I say. “It’s our honeymoon after all. Our real honeymoon. We need to do this right.”
“More like I need to do you right.”
In a graceful swoop, he lifts me from the rock and steps across a trail of stones. “Where to, co-pilot?” He asks. “We’ll pick a room and start from there,” I say.
“Sounds like a plan.”
As we walk, I can hear the faint tinkling of precious stones shifting against my neck. I reach up to stop them, feeling the coldness of the Hearts of Reina, embedded in a necklace Falax had made just for me. Their beauty sparkles in the fading evening light, and I can't help but smile at him. The necklace was a present, but I've already gotten the best gift for my wedding
. Not long ago I was just another cargo delivery to this smuggler. But now, I've joined him not only on his crew but also in our love. To me, that's the best treasure I could ever obtain.
END
Preview: The Klaskians Series Book 1
The Alien Surrogate
By:
Amelia Wilson
Prologue
Life on other planets is viable. It is real.
On the morning of July 26, 2029, an astronomer woke to find that a new planet impossibly joined the solar system. The new sphere, less than half the size of Earth and located twice distance between it and the moon, was instantly viewed as a threat.
The astronomer shared his findings only with the leaders of the most powerful nations, who instantly prepared for war, all the while keeping the citizens of Earth in darkness about their new knowledge lest panic and insanity arise.
On July 27, one day after the planet was sighted, a message arrived requesting peace. On August 10, a photograph emerged of two blue-hued humanoid males shaking hands with the most powerful of the world’s leaders. An accord was signed, a treatise laying out the terms for peace. The agreement swore that no one species would invade the other’s planet, but visitation with permission was acceptable.
Society fell into stunned shock. Some were vindicated, their beliefs in other life now proved. Some were fearful, others spew hatred. Many were simply curious about the new visitors.
The new planet, known to the people of Earth as Klaskar, remained largely a mystery, as did the blue-skinned aliens, the Klaskians. It was generally accepted that their technology was widely superior to anything on Earth; their knowledge so diverse that they could adopt any language to communicate.
Forbidden Reunion (Galaxy Smugglers Book 2) Page 6