“Get the ones with families to vouch for each other. It’s the men traveling alone who you’ll have to watch out for.”
He nodded. “Yes, we’re doing that. But with so many family members either killed or separated during the attack, it’s not proving to be so easy.”
“I guess that’s the whole reason the Trads landed as they did. They could have sneaked onto Earth, but throwing us into chaos makes it far easier for them to go unidentified and undetected.”
“You’re right, and we’re in a developed country. Imagine what those in more remote countries must be experiencing.” He glanced out toward the approaching chopper. “That’s why it’s important to learn as much as we can in a short space of time, and then get that information out to other countries. This isn’t just about America, it’s a worldwide issue.”
“Nowhere is safe,” I said, half to myself, but realizing it was the truth.
There was nowhere on Earth we could run to.
I’d have been far more nervous about flying to Washington and meeting the president if I didn’t also have my team with me. To my left stood our meteorologist, Casey Steelman, and on the other side of me was head of communications, Mike Fitzgerald. I’d even managed to convince the government officials that we needed to bring Aleandro Levy, head of security, with us. Aleandro waited ahead of me now, his arms folded across his massive chest, making sure he was between me and the chopper when it landed. I got the impression it was me he was protecting, instead of the Observatory, as was his job, and I couldn’t say I blamed him. After our discovery about the Trads motives, I thought perhaps I was the one who needed protecting.
Just the memory of how close I’d come with a man I’d believed to have been called Dean Lambert made my blood run cold. It could easily have been me who was taken.
I was still in shock at the loss of my best friend, Tara, to the invading Trads. The grief hadn’t struck yet, but I knew it was coming. When I realized I could no longer call her, any time, night or day, or that we’d never have coffee, or go shopping, or any of those regular things, I knew I would crumble. Maybe those things were over for us anyway because of what the Trads had done to our planet, but at least I’d had her by my side.
I tortured myself with what Tara must be going through. She’d be terrified—seeing and experiencing things that would give the rest of us nightmares. I was sure Tara would be having bad dreams of her own. She was with child now. The right hand man of the Emperor of planet Athion said women needed to be pregnant if they were going to be taken to planet Tradrych. They wouldn’t be able to survive the atmosphere otherwise. Something about the pregnancy changed their DNA enough to allow them to live where they otherwise wouldn’t.
How long did the Trad pregnancies last, and what would become of Tara once she’d given birth? My mind whirred. Would she feel any kind of emotion toward the baby? Would she be expected to raise the child as well, or would she simply be handed over to another Trad to be impregnated again?
I had the horrible feeling the second option would be the correct one. And what if she didn’t fall pregnant again right away? Would she be forced to have sex with her abductors over and over again until she did? Was that to be her life now—either pregnant with an alien baby, or raped until she became pregnant. I didn’t know what option was worse.
I bit down on my lower lip, holding back the tears. Emotion for my friend swelled inside me. We needed to figure out a way to get the abducted women back to Earth again. I had no idea how we’d go about doing such a thing, but we had to try. I couldn’t just abandon Tara or any of the other women who’d been taken.
Losing Tara was also the reason I’d begged for my younger sister, Molly, to come to Washington with us, but the government had stood firm on not allowing civilians to join us. We’d be dealing with classified material and they simply couldn’t allow it. I felt horrible about leaving her here, unprotected, though she encouraged me to go. Sergeant Byrd said he would protect her, but we still had no idea who we could trust. The asteroid strike had destroyed buildings and killed hundreds of thousands. Homes had been lost and there were countless people without identification. We could ask for people to vouch that they’d known each other since before the strikes, but how did we even know we could trust those who were doing the vouching? The whole thing made my head hurt. I’d worked with Casey, Mike, and Aleandro for a while now, but a tiny part of me worried this might not even be the Trad’s first strike. What if they’d already instilled their kind on Earth to lay the foundations of what was happening now, and even those we knew from before the strike had happened were potential threats?
Who could we really trust?
“It’s almost time for you to go,” Molly said from behind me.
I turned away from the approaching helicopter to face her. Looking into my sister’s face often felt like looking into a mirror. She shared my dark hair, though hers was a shade lighter than mine, and was a few years younger than me, but otherwise we were similar in appearance. “I know. I hate leaving you like this, but I don’t have any choice.”
She nodded bravely. “You can help. It’s important that you do. Tara would have wanted you to.”
My sister was as devastated about Tara as I was. While the two of them hadn’t been as close as me and Tara, they still had plenty of love for each other, and I knew the events of the last few days had brought them even closer. Molly had also hooked up with a guy here, and we had yet to determine if he was a Trad or not.
“It could have been me,” she said, echoing my thoughts.
I squeezed her hand. “We don’t know that Lee was one of them,” I reassured her.
We don’t know that Dean was either, not for sure, I thought but didn’t say.
Her eyes filled with tears. “God, poor Tara. What the hell is she going through right now? What are those bastards doing to her? She must be so frightened.”
My sister dissolved into tears again and my eyes prickled. I had to hold it together, though, as much as I wanted to wail and rant against the world. I had work to do. We had to figure out a way to pick out the Trads among human men, and also how to protect our women against them.
That was where I came in.
The president wanted to be briefed. Because of my first hand experience of not only being a planetary scientist, and being one of the first to spot the incoming asteroids, but also having had firsthand experience of a Trad, and seeing the abduction of my friend with my own eyes, it seemed I now had unique experiences others in my field had sensibly managed to avoid.
Of course, we hadn’t known even a few days ago what we did now, but time was running out. Every minute that passed, there was another human woman being seduced and abducted, and we needed to spread the word to protect them from what was happening.
But how would we protect people? It wasn’t as though we could just tell women not to have sex. Maybe in the short term it would work, but not moving forward. Sex was a natural instinct in humanity, and it wasn’t only about procreating. Sure, we could move all procreation to a test tube, just to be sure, but we’d lose so much as a species. Sex bonded us, emotionally as well as physically, and we couldn’t just ban it. Perhaps those with long term partners who’d met many years ago would be fine, but what about people like me and my sister, who hadn’t yet met that one person to be with. Even advising protective sex might have worked, but we already knew how sneaky the Trads were by posing as humans, so what was to stop them using a condom, and then, in the heat of the moment, whipping it off and going bareback? Besides, I had the contraceptive implant and I was still targeted, which made me think that the Trads were immune to our human contraception.
I glanced to the men around me. One partner—that was how humans normally mated—but thing weren’t going that way for me. I’d formed a bond with all three of these men, and not only sexually. I didn’t want to give up even one of them, never mind all of them. For the moment, abstaining was the safest thing, but with three gorgeous men arou
nd me, it wasn’t going to be easy.
The helicopter settled down on the desert ground, the blades sending sand and dirt whipping up into the air. I lifted my arm to protect my face, and the others did the same. Gradually, the helicopter blades slowed enough to allow us to approach without being blinded by flying sand and debris. Aleandro went first, and two men in suits jumped out of the side of the aircraft to meet him. He shook hands with them both and then pointed back to me. I lifted my hand in a greeting, and tried to keep my shoulders back and chin up, but my stomach roiled with nerves. These were government officials, and I was sure they’d been fully vetted, but I couldn’t help but wonder if they were who they said they were.
Sergeant Byrd, unaware of my inner turmoil, stuck his hand out toward me. “I’m sure we’ll see you back here soon.”
I gave his hand a shake, my grip fierce. “Yes, you will, and make sure you look after my sister for me while I’m gone.”
“I will.”
Molly fell into my arms, fresh tears rolling down her face. “I wish I could come with you.”
“I do, too. But I’ll only be a day or so, and hopefully not even that long, and then I’ll be back.”
I felt horrible for her, and had even considered threatening to stay behind myself, but I was going for her future safety, too. We needed to figure out a way to stop the Trads.
Besides, if the president orders you to the White House, you don’t say no.
I gave her a final squeeze. “Stay away from men,” I warned her.
She nodded and wiped at her face. “Don’t worry, I will. There’s no way in hell I’m going to risk being taken like Tara.”
It was easy to say this now, while everything was so new and frightening, but I had to wonder how things would be in the months and even years to come. If there were Trads prowling Earth who hadn’t yet found a mate, they would take their time. The more resistant we became toward them, the sneakier they would get. And the more we let our guard down, the easier it would be for them to take us.
I was seriously worried for the future of humanity. How could we continue on Earth as a species if we weren’t able to safely find a mate and begin families?
“Ready?” Aleandro called over his shoulder, shouting over the noise of the helicopter rotor blades.
I nodded. “As I’ll ever be.”
Mike and Casey moved alongside me, one at each shoulder. I did feel as though the men had suddenly grown more protective of me. Perhaps it was because they’d seen me with Dean, and understood how close it had been to me being the one sucked up by a blue light in the middle of the desert.
The two men who’d shaken Aleandro’s hand turned to me now.
One was older, in his forties, I guess, while the other looked to be late twenties to early thirties. The older man was completely bald, though I didn’t know if that was on purpose or if he’d started to lose his hair and decided to shave it. There was something hard about his blue eyes, and twin lines ran down either side of his mouth like a puppet’s. The younger man had military short hair that was a shade darker than blond, and kinder, hazel eyes.
“Camille Harran, it’s good to meet you,” said the older man. “I’m Agent Jeremy Faw, Interplanetary Security, and this is Agent Craig Miller.” I shook both their hands. “We appreciate you taking the time to give us your unique insight into what’s happening,” he continued.
“Not a problem.”
I climbed on board and the men followed. Aleandro sat opposite with Casey and Agent Faw. Mike took the seat to my right, and Agent Miller was to my left. We each had a headset on the back of our seats and Agent Faw motioned to it, an indication we should be wearing them. I lifted mine up and hooked it over my head. The helicopter had grown louder as the pilot had been preparing to take off, but now the ear pieces muffled the sound.
The rotor blades grew louder and landing skids lifted off the ground. My stomach lurched and I reached out to both sides grabbing hold of whatever was closest. In this case, it happened to be Mike’s thigh—which I could get away with—and the thigh of the young government agent who I’d only just met.
“Oh, sorry,” I said, unsure if he could even hear me over the noise of the chopper, and with the headset on. But he grinned back at me, revealing a row of straight white teeth, and his hazel eyes twinkled. My face grew warm with embarrassment. That wasn’t quite the impression I wanted to make.
The helicopter banked to one side and I risked looking across Mike and out of the window. Already it seemed like a massive drop, and my heart raced. It didn’t feel natural to be this high in the sky in a tin can. For some reason, even though I saw airplanes and even passenger rocketships leaving Earth all the time, a helicopter never felt as safe.
My sister and the others were now merely dots on the desert landscape below us, and I watched the Observatory grow smaller as we climbed higher into the sky and left our one place of sanctuary far behind.
To be continued...
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About the Author
Marissa Farrar has always been in love with being in love. But since she's been married for numerous years and has three young daughters, she's conducted her love affairs with multiple gorgeous men of the fictional persuasion.
The author of more than thirty novels, she has been a full time author for the last six years. She predominantly writes paranormal romance and fantasy, but has branched into contemporary fiction as well.
If you want to know more about Marissa, then please visit her website at www.marissa-farrar.blogspot.com. You can also find her at her facebook page, www.facebook.com/marissa.farrar.author or follow her on twitter @marissafarrar.
She loves to hear from readers and can be emailed at [email protected] and to stay updated on all her new Reverse Harem books, just sign up to her newsletter! https://landing.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/e2x3e1
Also by the Author
Dark Codes: A Reverse Harem Series
Hacking Darkness
Unraveling Darkness
Decoding Darkness
Merging Darkness
Chronicles of the Four: A Reverse Harem Fantasy
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With a Dragon’s Heart
Into a Dragon’s Soul
The Mercenary Series:
The Choice She Made
The Lie She Told
The Trust She Gave
The Trap She Faced
A Vampire’s Thirst
Nikolai
Ivan
The Blood Courtesans Vampire Romance:
Stolen
The Serenity Series:
Alone (free first novel of the series!)
Buried
Captured
Dominion
Endless
THE COMPLETE SERIES BOXED SET
The Dhampyre Chronicles:
Twisted Dreams
Twisted Magic
The Spirit Shifters Series:
Autumn’s Blood (free first novel)
Saving Autumn
Autumn Rising
Autumn’s War
Avenging Autumn
Autumn’s End
THE COMPLETE SERIES BOXED SET
The Monster Trilogy
DEFACED
DENIED
DELIVERED
Contemporary Fiction Novels
NO SECOND CHANCES
DIRTY SHOTS
CUT TOO DEEP
SURVIVOR
THE SOUND OF CRICKETS
Dark Fantasy/horror novels:
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THE DARK ROAD
Their Invasion- Planet Athion Page 12