Taken by the Aliens

by Anna Lewis

  Special Bonus Full Length Stories

  As a way to say “thank you” for downloading this book, we have included 11 special bonus full length novellas and short stories. Happy reading!

  = Bonus Book 1 of 11 =

  Protected by a Dragon

  Kayla

  “Thank you, everyone,” I burst over the mic, causing another round of booming cheers from the audience. “You have been a great crowd.”

  I loved my job, it was amazing, I had the whole world at my feet just for doing what I enjoyed the most – singing – but very occasionally I would get tired. Every now and again I would find it a little much, and tonight was one of those times.

  Usually after gigs, despite the constant warnings from my management team, I would go outside and sign autographs to keep my fans on my side, but tonight I wasn't feeling it. I just couldn't be bothered.

  Okay, that wasn't really the case. Actually my problem lay with the constant communication from a man who was rapidly becoming something of a stalker. What had started out as a few slightly creepy letters was now a constant bombardment on my social media accounts, and it was quite emotionally exhausting. I loved checking the Internet, it was the closest thing I got to normal, adult communication these days, but that had been taken from me. Now it was something I feared.

  “We need to get you straight to the hotel,” my manager, who everyone called Mouse, insisted the moment that I stepped off stage. “Apparently a suspicious person has been spotted outside.”

  I grabbed my cell phone out of my pocket, wanting to see if my mom had called me, but Mouse slid it from my fingers right away. “What the hell?” I whined, but he just shot me a look as a reply.

  “You need a media blackout. I don't want this guy to be able to locate you in any way. Tweets have locations, Instagrams have geotags…”

  “Can't I just call my mom?” I said. I missed her, I needed her tonight. The blackout seemed like an unfair punishment.

  “No,” he shot back sharply. “We need to be much smarter about things now. You can call her tomorrow.”

  I watched in disappointed amazement as he whizzed away from me, indicating for me to follow. I shook my head sadly and trailed behind him like a sad little puppy. I'd come into this business assuming that the power and money would lead to freedom… how wrong I was.

  As I slid into the blacked-out car next to my manager, he rambled into his phone at a barely legible volume. I didn't care anyway, why would I want to listen to what he had to say? But then I heard a few words that caught my attention, and I found myself leaning in despite myself.

  “…new security… bodyguard… shifter company… round the clock…”

  Was he talking about getting extra security for me? I had bodyguards for when I was out and about for my work, but not for the rest of the time. I was famous, but not quite enough for round the clock protection. I wasn't sure that I needed it. Yes this was a creep, but he wouldn't actually do anything, would he?

  Plus a shapeshifter… was that really necessary? Wouldn't a human be enough? Sure, shifters had their extra abilities – the vampires with their strength, the werewolves with their speed, and the dragons with their flight – and yes they were a lot stronger, but it all felt a bit much to have one as a bodyguard.

  I'd had my fantasies about shifters, all women did, but after a disastrous date with a werewolf just as I was on the cusp of becoming famous I'd put that idea well from my mind. Not that I would be dating this bodyguard, of course. He would be just another person looking after me.

  “So,” Mouse gave me a serious look. “We're about to step everything up a level, just to be really careful.”

  “Right, whatever,” I rolled my eyes obviously. “I don't really care, I think it's all stupid, but whatever you think. Now can I please just have my damn phone back? I need to call my mom.” Now it had become a point to argue about. I just couldn't understand why I was being punished.

  “My assistant is arranging a shapeshifter bodyguard to come and look after you,” he talked over me, maddening me by being so annoying. Because I didn't always smile for photographs, when I wasn't totally in the mood to be dealing with the press, I had the reputation with some that I was bratty. For a while I did what I could to change that, before giving up and accepting that it wasn't going to happen. I just acted like myself. Now though I half wished that I were more of a brat because I got the sense that really flipping out could have actually had an effect. “He will be here tonight. He's going to meet you at the hotel, so you need to be ready for him.”

  “Right, whatever.” I crossed my arms across my chest and looked angrily out of the window. What was the point of any of this? I'd considered giving up my career a few times, but now that thought was becoming more regular, and more overpowering.

  Maybe if I really acted out, if I just acted like the spoilt brat that others already assumed I was, then my label would drop me. I didn't know what else I would do with my life, I didn't have a backup plan, but anything had to be better. Mom would probably be glad to have me back anyway.

  “You will need to be on your best behavior,” Mouse warned as if he could see the cogs turning in my brain. “I don't want to hear any bullshit, all of this makes my job difficult enough, I don't need anymore.”

  Urgh, this was ridiculous, I would get out. Just to piss Mouse off. He deserved it. He had no idea what this life was like for me. He had it easy, raking in the money without having his life paraded and made up for the world to see. I was the one who had to suffer, who had the stalker. I needed to make my own choices for once.

  ***

  Hex

  I cricked my neck, and stretched out my arms, re-feeling my human body again. I liked my human form, it was tough and powerful, although my features were so dark they sometimes scared people. But there was something so freeing about being a dragon.

  My body took on a deep black coloring, with orange tints, and my wingspan was one of the biggest around. As I flew above the rest of the world, looking down at everyone, I felt free and important. I felt like I mattered to the world.

  I grew up in a very small town, populated mostly by dragon shifters like myself, but I always wanted more. I felt like I was much too big for my hometown, so I couldn't wait until I was old enough to get out. As soon as I hit eighteen years old I moved from city to city, trying to work out where I fit in. It took me a while, four and a half years to be precise, but when I got to Los Angeles it just felt right. I enjoyed the sun, the space, the people. I knew there and then that I wanted to stay.

  Then of course I had to make a living. I needed money to find somewhere to live, and unfortunately one of the only things that my strength was good for was looking after other people. I worked the doors at nightclubs, bars, and more recently I'd moved to a new company who looked after specific people. Namely celebrities. I wasn't really interested in that side of things, but it paid really well and I needed somewhere better to live.

  Ring, ring…

  Ring, ring…

  I ignored it for a couple of rings, not really ready for fully adjusting to my human shape, but when it didn't shut up I grabbed my phone and answered.

  “Yeah?” I said in a slightly gruff tone. My throat was still burning hot from the fire, but that would die down soon enough.

  “Mr. Rockwell?” the grave sounding voice on the other end of the line spoke out. “It's Burt here, from the agency.”

  Shit, this was work. If I didn't want to lose this job before I'd even had a chance to do any work, I needed to clean my act up. “Oh yes, hello… Sir. It's good to hear from you.” Nope, that was too formal. I was blowing it.

  “Right, well I just wanted to see if you are available at the moment? We have had a rush job come in. If you could take on this work, the money would be good because of the short notice.”

  How could I refuse an offer like that? That was exactly what I needed! The dollar signs flickered in my eyes. “That sounds great,” I replied much more warml
y. “What will I need to do?”

  “Have you heard of Kayla Kay? The pop star? She has been threatened by a stalker, and apparently this guy is getting worse by the day. She needs someone with her twenty four seven, and we thought that you would be perfect for that role.”

  Translation: no one else wanted to do it.

  We were used to divas in LA, so there had to be something really bad about this one. Still, I didn't need to let that stop me. I did need the money.

  “Okay, no worries, I can do that.”

  “I will send you the details in a moment.”

  As I hung up the phone I quickly logged onto the Internet and searched for Kayla Kay, wanting to know more about her. If I was going to be spending the foreseeable future with this woman then I needed to know as much as I could about her.

  “Twenty-one years old,” I muttered quietly, scanning through everything. “Hit fame at nineteen. Moved from a small town.” Ooh, that made me wonder if she was anything like me. “And now is known for her hard-working ethos… constantly on the road… bratty reputation…” Perfect, that was just what I needed.

  I clicked onto her Instagram account, just to see what she looked like and actually for a second she made my heart leap into my throat. Of course, these pictures were well cropped and edited in the most flattering way, but that long blonde hair which surrounded her heart-shaped face, well it blew me away a little bit. Then there were her deep green eyes that I felt were piercing into my soul. As I looked at her I had a strong urge to give her everything…

  No, I couldn't think like that. I needed to keep my head screwed on. This was a job, a temporary thing, nothing more. Plus, I was off relationships anyway. Not that I would ever date a human… or at least I hadn't ever thought I would.

  Okay, admittedly another reason I had escaped my hometown was because of Vivien. I'd loved her, from a very young age. The moment I set eyes on her I felt something within me change. I assumed that she was my one, the woman that I would be with forever, and I'd continued on with my life assuming that one day she would catch on and start feeling the same way that I did.

  Then one day, at her eighteenth birthday party, it seemed that had finally happened. It felt like a scene from a movie, like she'd finally seen me across the room at her house and we were drawn in together like magnets. We kissed, she led me upstairs, we made love… it felt like my real life was about to begin.

  Until the morning, when she told me to get out, and she called me 'Hank'. I was well known in our town, but it seemed that wasn't enough for Vivien. I realized then that I was never going to be what she wanted, and I ran without looking back.

  I vowed then that I would never get involved without being sure that it was going to turn into love. I never, ever wanted to get my heartbroken again. Once was bad enough, I honestly didn't think that I would survive it again.

  Anyway, off to work, time to go to this random hotel, to meet this random famous chick. It would be long hours. I just hoped that this job wouldn't be the death of me.

  ***

  Kayla

  I lay across the bed feeling ridiculously morose and lonely. It was insane how much I relied on technology for communication from the outside world, I hadn't even realized it until now. I didn't even care about speaking to my mom anymore, I just wanted to talk to anyone. To feel connected. I even just wanted to click through the comments on my Instagram account, just to look at the good ones, just for the confidence boost.

  Now I had nothing.

  “Knock, knock,” Mouse cooed through the door in that patronizing manner of his. “Can I come in?”

  “No,” I shot back in a heartbeat. “I'm busy.”

  But of course, he totally ignored me and came inside anyway. Once of these days I would be actually in the middle of something and then he'd get a shock. “Here is Hex, the bodyguard I told you about.”

  “Right,” I pouted, allowing my sulkiness to shine through. “Whatever.”

  “Hello there,” I suddenly heard a chocolaty, gruff voice, but it wasn't that which got my attention. It was the wariness to his tone, as if he didn't want to be in this position either.

  I glanced up and found my eyes traveling up a well sculpted, picturesque body which had my heart fluttering like crazy. I wasn't sure what else I'd been expecting, shapeshifters always looked incredible, but being close to this one felt different.

  “Erm, yeah, hi,” I sat up straighter on the bed and smoothed down my hair. As he shook my hand to be polite I felt a weird buzz race through my body, almost as if he excited me, which was crazy. In all honesty, his morose expression was enough to know that he wasn't the sort of person that I would even like, never mind…

  Well, nothing, because those sorts of thoughts weren't even in my mind.

  “Where am I going to sleep?” he asked me, not even batting an eyelid.

  “Erm…” what did he mean? I knew that he had to be with me all the time, but not in my room, surely? I couldn't handle that. How the hell was I supposed to process everything that was happening to me if I didn't have any time by myself?

  “We can book you a room,” Mouse interjected, much to my relief.

  “No, don't worry about it,” Hex replied. “I will sleep outside the door. That way I'll be able to keep an eye out all around. And don't worry, I'm a very light sleeper.”

  As Hex and Mouse left me by myself in my room, I felt all off-kilter. I could almost feel a magnetism radiating off this man, despite the fact that he wasn't even in the room anymore, which left me all on edge. I'd been weary before, close to getting ready for sleep, but now I had a weird anticipation coursing through my veins.

  I needed to do something. All of a sudden my hotel room felt totally claustrophobic and I wanted to get out. Only I couldn't, not with the light sleeper on the other side of the door.

  No, I needed to forget that plan and climb into bed, before I did something stupid. But even as I thought about resting I knew that it wouldn't happen. I just wasn't in the right frame of mind.

  Wasn't my plan to escape anyway? To act up to make everyone else see that this was my life and I could do whatever I wanted? Once I broke free and partied all night long, Mouse and the rest of them would soon see that they were wrong about my stalker. Yes he freaked me out online, but everyone knew that the Internet was a completely different world to real life.

  My heart thundered in my chest as I considered the possibility of escaping. I wasn't one for always doing what I was told anyway, but tonight it felt even naughtier. I'd had it expressly forbidden.

  I mean, it was possible. This hotel room was on the first floor, I could jump down with ease. I might not have had my phone to contact any of my friends', but I knew where they'd be. That new club had opened on the corner, and it was all that everyone could talk about. It was exclusive, but I was just about famous enough to be counted as a VIP so getting inside wouldn't be an issue.

  The more that I thought about it, the better the idea sounded. It exhilarated me. It was either remain here, cooped up and pissed off, or go out and have fun. There really wasn't any competition with that one.

  I slid the window open as quietly as I could, glancing towards the door constantly as I did. I didn't want Hex to hear me until I was gone' and there was nothing that he could do about it, which made all of this even more thrilling. My pulse rate was about as high as it could go. My whole body was trembling. I almost giggled from the excitement.

  As I tossed myself out of the window, and the cool breeze hit my face, that laugh finally burst free from my chest. I'd done it, I'd acted the worst that I ever had, and now I was about to reap the benefits of that. I didn't have anything on too early in the morning, so I could get drunk and dance all night long – it was going to be epic.

  But just as I escaped from the hotel grounds, my body slammed into that of a stranger, causing me to stagger backwards.

  “Ooh, sorry,” I said quickly, hysteria lacing my tone. “I didn't mean to…

  “That'
s okay, Kayla,” came the very cold reply. “I don't mind having your body up against mine.”

  My blood ran cold, my whole body iced up. It couldn't be… could it?

  ***

  Hex

  I couldn't sleep, however hard I tried. This was all a little much for me. Sure I was a good bodyguard. I'd proven more than once that I could do the job. But this was too much.

  Kayla 'was in the dark. Mouse had made the possibly naïve decision not to tell her the full details of the issue with her stalker. She assumed that it was just a few letters and some unpleasant stuff said to her on social media, because they had kept the parcels he'd sent away from her.

  This guy was sick, clearly very obsessed with her, and to prove that he'd been sending her parts of his body – toenails, hair, a vial of blood. The more that she ignored him (because she didn't know) the more incessant he became. It seemed like he was slowly coming to the point where he was going to come after her.

  I didn't like it. I didn't like it one bit.

  I wanted to burst in that room right away and tell Kayla the truth. She clearly thought that hiring me was an over the top reaction. It had been written all across her face. I wanted her to understand why it was necessary.

  But there was something holding me back, and I wasn't sure what it was. I guessed it had something to do with the weird feeling that she had caused in my stomach the moment our eyes locked. I hadn't ever experienced it before, so I didn't know how to process it. I wasn't totally sure what it was.

  I pressed my ear up against the door, listening in to hear what she was up to. I felt wired, like my whole body was buzzing with something exciting. Much as I wanted to collapse into the chair Mouse had set outside the door and get some shut eye, it was never going to happen now. Not when I had so much weirdness to consider.

  The room was silent, too silent. I might not have had the same incredible hearing of a wolf, but it was good enough to know that Kayla was either sleeping and very still, or she wasn't there.