by Stella Sky
I gasped for air and through my crying fit said, “No. What the hell is going on? I just got here. I had to come tell you. The registration office tried to get in touch with you, but they couldn’t. Then I got here and they told me that you were dead. Oh, Kasian, I am so glad that you are alive.”
“Is it true? What you said out there. Is it true or were you just saying that to get out of trouble? Please tell me you are not part of this?”
“Part of what? Kasian, tell me what is going on here?”
“Is it true? Are you with child?” he asked again.
“Yes, it is true. I have been known since I returned to Los Angeles,” I said.
He smiled a big smile. He was happy. I longed to see that happy grin on his face for so long. I smiled a weak smile in response. Then his smile faded as he grabbed my arm and said, “Is it mine? Or is it my brother’s?” he asked.
I stopped smiling. I had to tell him the truth. I could not hurt him with a lie; I never wanted to hurt him again. “I don’t know, Kasian. I wish I could tell you, but I honestly don’t know. I won’t know until after the birth,” I said.
He ran his fingers through his long hair. I knew that move; he was angry. “What are you doing here? Do you know what’s going on here? Please tell me you are not part of this?”
“I don’t know what you are talking about. I only just arrived. Check my flight information. Check the boat I took here, and the driver. I was barely here when the SWAT team burst in.”
He sighed and said, “The SWAT team is worth the Earth Council. We discovered that some of my team is working with my brother. They are traitors. We had no way of knowing who, so the king ordered this raid. Then to find you here among them at this time.”
I gasped. This was not good. He had already thought I was working for his brother before and now for me to show up at this time. I felt sick to my stomach. I kept being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“Oh, Kasian, you must believe me. I had no idea. I only came here to find you. I had to tell you about the baby. I didn’t know what else to do. You must believe me, please,” I begged.
“Commander, your brother has been captured!” a voice yelled through the door with a loud knock.
No, I thought. I was just in the process of reuniting with Kasian and now they were going to take him away. Kasian opened the door and said, “Where?”
“On the river! On a river barge heading toward the city.”
Kasian grabbed my arm and led me outside the cabin. “This is Kelly Perkins. Take her with you to the Earth Council for safety. She is with child. She is not part of this raid; she is my special guest, is that understood?”
“Yes, Commander,” the swat team man said.
“But, Kasian, wait…” I said. But it was no use. He only looked at me as he moved away and shifted. Then he followed a group of Drackon toward the river. I sighed. But I was glad that he was alive. He was still out of reach, but he was alive and that was all that I could really ask for today. There was hope.
I waited at the Earth Council for two days, growing more and more anxious. The mission was top secret and was not able to get any information out of anyone. I was given a comfortable room in the living quarters of the council with an amazing city view. Each day I looked over the courtyard wondering if I could see Kasian walk in, but I never did.
Being pregnant made me increasingly sleepy and it was during one of the many naps that I had grown used to that I had a wonderful dream about Kasian. It was back in the days before his brother made himself known to us. I was in his garden, picking vegetables for breakfast. I was going to make veggie omelets.
“Does this make you happy?” Kasian asked as I pulled potatoes from the ground.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“This type of life. Does it make you happy? Picking your own foods to cook, and living out in the wilderness? You know, my home on Mooreah is a lot like this. It is outside of the city, in the wilderness. You would like it there.”
“Mooreah. I never thought about going to Mooreah; in fact, that is why I picked you, because you were on Earth. But yes, this does make me happy. This simple life, and perhaps a few babies too.”
He laughed and kissed my lips. His kiss was so real in the dream. I thought that I could feel his lips on mine. They grazed softly over mine back and forth. I could smell his delicious, manly scent and I let out a soft moan in my sleep.
“I’ve missed that sound,” he said. But his voice was very loud and clear. I opened my eyes and couldn’t tell if I was still dreaming. Kasian was lingering above me. His hand moved my hair off my forehead.
“Kasian?”
“Yes, I’m here. I’ve returned.”
I sat up in bed and looked around. It wasn’t a dream. I threw my arms around him. “I was so worried I was never going to see you again.”
“No need to worry. I am a very strong warrior.”
“I am so happy that you are here. I know that you can never forgive me, but please do not shut me out, not now,” I said to him.
“I have come to terms with what happened. Time has helped to heal that rage. My brother admitted to me that he went after you on purpose. He held a grudge against me for stealing a female Drackon he loved when we were fifteen.”
“He did?” I said, wide eyed and filled with relief.
“Yes, he did, and he has been captured. He is on his way to a prison on Sala. He can never bother us again.”
I sighed and threw my arms around him. He rubbed my back up and down and said, “I’m so sorry for everything I put you through. It was wrong of me.”
“No, I apologize for being so reckless while I was here in the city before meeting you. I really thought I was just having my own, private bachelorette party and now I ruined everything.”
“No, you did not. We have this child,” he said putting his hand on my belly.
“But Kasian, I do not know,” I said feeling sad.
“I know, but it does not matter. I will raise it as my own. My brother is not a good Drackon warrior; he could never be a good father. If this offspring is his, we will still raise it together as a family.”
“A family? You mean…”
“Yes, if you will have me. I still want you to be my wife,” he said seriously.
“Yes! Yes, Kasian, I want you. I will be your wife,” I said.
“Good, get dressed. We will go now. There is a councilmember that can marry us today. He is waiting on the fifth floor for us,” he said smiling.
“What? Now? Are you joking or are you being serious?” I asked.
“Oh, I am not joking. I will not be letting anything get in the way of our marriage ever again, and the sooner we do it, the sooner we will be married before you clumsily fall into some trouble,” he said playfully.
“Kasian!” I said. Then I kissed him hard and fast. Before I knew it, we were ravaging each other. So much longing and desire had been held back for so long. I pulled away from him and said, “Do you think that the councilmember can wait another hour or two?” I said breathlessly.
“He is going to have to,” he said as he kissed me and pushed me back on the bed. Then he made love to me. This time, with all the animosity between us gone. It was beautiful and sensual as he took his time savoring every inch of me, and took my time enjoying his every touch. Tears rolled down my face as I had finally had what I wanted since I first saw his photo: his love.
After two hours of making love, we forced ourselves out of bed, but only for an hour. We went down to the fifth floor and were quickly married in a brief and simple ceremony. It was perfect. Then it was only an elevator ride back to the room, which we would make our honeymoon suite for a week. We never left the bed.
When the time came, our hybrid Drackonian son was born. He was perfect and the Drackon test proved that he was Kasian’s child. His blond locks and blue eyes left no doubt in my mind anyway. We named him Kild. It was a mixture of the wild from the forest that we loved, and the initial o
f our names: Kasian and Kelly. And although we started our family on Earth, we eventually moved to Kasian’s home on Mooreah. If I had known that Mooreah was something out of a medieval fairy tale, I would have wanted to move there sooner. It was stunning, and it was perfect for our perfect family.
The End(flip next page for me bonus books!)
Savage Alien(Preview)
By Stella Sky
Chapter One
Sidney
I’m a good listener. So when Karen started screaming, “Run, run, run,” I took off like a bat out of hell.
I didn’t even turn around to see if she was alright.
Instead, I listened to the sounds that were echoing behind me, a ‘THWOOP THWOOP THWOOP’ siren that reverberated through the ground. The sound of the creatures. The aliens.
I hadn’t seen streetlights in so long that they were almost blinding as I ran down the dampened streets of the abandoned city. Snow bit against the ground under the beams of light and quickly dissolved as it hit the pavement.
The backstreets of my old neighborhoods twisted in sudden darkness like a maze. If I could make it to my old house, I would be able to escape through the woodlands behind my backyard. Back to safety.
The vibrations of the aliens who were no doubt still chasing me grew stronger. So strong that I thought I might lose my footing, but then I saw it. My old front door. If I had a moment for my brain to catch up with my sight, I might have cried then. But I just wanted to get into my backyard and hide.
I raced past the old wrought iron fence, a rotting black, and found myself in the middle of the wet back lawn, still covered with heavy rotted fallen leaves, freshly snowed on.
My breath was barreling out of me as I knelt down and pressed my back up against the shed, shaking against the wriggly metal. I heard a loud scream in the distance; down the road maybe. Something foreign. One of them.
I felt my teeth chatter violently and gripped my sidearm, waiting for the beast to come at me.
Make my day, bitch, I thought. But nothing happened.
Then suddenly ice-cold fingers were on my arm, and I flinched back, falling hard against the shed siding.
“Baxley, shit!” I swore and pushed my commander away from me; his black curls and stiff beard looking shiny under the motion-activated lights.
“Where’s Karen?” he said, his gravelly voice difficult to understand when he spoke in a whisper as he did then.
Karen, our lead scientist, was taken by them eight days ago. We being a small group of survivors. The revolutionists who hid and managed to keep out of sight long enough for the aliens to leave us alive; leave us alone, believing there was nothing left of our people. No one left to kill.
And then one day, Karen was gone, and everything changed. Twenty years of hiding all thrown to shit because she had a hunch to test.
Baxley and I went on a mission to get her back, but she didn’t welcome our rescue. Turns out she liked her cage.
“Not here,” I snapped back, pushing Baxley away from me.
“You left her?” the middle-aged man snapped at me, pulling me up and leading me instinctively toward the woods.
“Hey, she told me to run.”
“Yeah,” he said dismissively, raising and lowering his brows quickly. “Way to follow orders.”
I matched his expression and quickened my pace so that I walked next to him. “Hey, that’s what I thought.”
My commander rolled his eyes and held his gun close. “So, what? We just leavin’ her back there? With them?”
I shrugged, pre-annoyed. “She seemed pretty happy to me.”
We made our way into the thicket: a dense wood that sprawled on for miles. It was in here that we were first able to lose the creatures: shake them from us long enough to catch a breath. But that was a long time ago.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked quickly.
“Just what I said.”
Baxley sighed. “Will you stop bein’ snippy and give me a straight answer, for once? You’re the biggest pain in my ass.”
“You love it,” I teased. “B, we have to talk.”
“What, you breakin’ up with me, kid?”
I smiled his way, but neither of us picked up on the conversation offer. We had an odd relationship. Not only for commander and soldier, but for me being twenty-two and Baxley a cool fifty-five.
At first, I thought of him like a… not father. But like a plucky uncle. One that always had great stories and seemed to run into the zaniest people. But by the time I turned seventeen, I began having different feelings toward him. I went through a crisis then. An, ‘if this is all there is, why not?’ phase where I rebelled.
I rebelled within a rebellion, and it looked a whole lot like me sneaking into Baxley’s trailer—that’s where we hide, by the way: an abandoned trailer park on the outskirts of town—and kissing him deeply even as he protested.
Out of either instinct or routine, we both crouched for cover, hearing a distant hum that neither of us could identify as being close or far away.
Baxley drew his gun and traced it along the dark thicket, and I followed suit. We stayed deathly silent then until the hum disappeared for certain.
“When I said Karen looked happy,” I began again, “I meant… she was kissing that thing.”
“Rape?” Baxley asked in a furious whisper, his brows drawing together in confusion.
“He didn’t have her sprawled out on the sidewalk,” I offered in a tone that might as well have been a shrug.
“You know what I mean,” he warned.
“I don’t think so,” I said.
Karen had a theory about the aliens, these Vithohn, that I found disturbing. I’d spent nearly my whole life fighting them. Learning to trap them. Taking cues from Baxley on how to handle myself in a militia. My father was part of Baxley’s militia, and when he died, Baxley took me under his wing. I was cocking guns since I was eight.
To me, the aliens were the ultimate enemy.
But Karen… she had different ideas about them. About ways to control them: change them.
“I’m not leavin’ her,” Baxley said suddenly, stoic.
“Then you’re risking your own life, not mine,” I argued, traipsing further into the wilds. “I’m not going back there.”
“She’s our second in command,” he snapped.
“And you’re first in command, so deal!”
Baxley didn’t like being our commander; he didn’t like others thinking he was in a position of authority. It was all a moot point, anyhow, since everyone revered and respected him. Everyone went to him when we needed someone to tell us how to survive.
“Fine,” the dark-haired man seethed through gritted teeth. “Then as commander, I say we’re going back!”
“B, trust me, she wants to be there.”
Baxley’s eyes darted back and forth from mine in a fury, and he grabbed my arm: the second time he’d ever been aggressive with me. The first time was when I kissed him that first time; he’d shoved me back and grabbed me by the shoulders, shaking me. Then he kissed me again, just to be sure it was wrong.
Before he had the chance to scold me, a crashing came down hard in the distance; tree branches thudded to the ground in a sure signal that we’d been spotted.
I waited to see what Baxley’s play would be: steely silence and an excellent hiding place or pure panic and run. He chose the latter.
We took off, shooting in opposite directions as the Vithohn let out a terrifying shriek. Baxley had just enough time to make eye contact with me to let me know I would be used as bait this time.
The air went warm; even in the cold, the alien’s diamond textured, snake-like skin drew a heat to the surrounding area and I knew he was close.
I dug my spiked boot into the ground and spun on it, running left, breathing in the sharp winter air and feeling it hit my lungs like daggers.
Swerving west, I had a jolt bump up in my stomach as I felt the smooth grip of the creature against my l
eg. My heart thumped against my chest, and I just managed to get away from his grasp, plucking my leg from his grip like I was watching myself from afar.
I heard Baxley fire off his weapon, probably aware that the thing was getting a little too close to me and I fired back, smoking the Vithohn in his thick arm and watching as his self-induced force field sparked up instinctively.
“Come here, asshole!” I yelled
I goaded him toward me, watching my feet as they danced on tiptoes to avoid our carefully dug holes.
Suddenly, I realized he wasn’t alone, but the two other sets of footsteps shrank back as we all watched the smooth, tight-faced creature rocket down beneath a shallow covering of leaves: a thin façade of ground covering, one of our carefully calculated traps.
My militia had dug holes around here; a drippy pink acid we concocted set in pools of thick plastic that would hopefully be good enough to roast off a limb or two. Anything to keep them on unstable footing would work fine for me, especially now.
I couldn’t help but bellow a small laugh as the creature went splashing down below into the bubbling acid, unable to activate his shield.
The creature emitted a piercing, rhythmic sound that sent the hairs on my neck shooting upward. I gritted my teeth, wondering if it might be a war cry and that I was totally screwed.
I looked down in the pit and watched as the taupe-skinned foreigner thrashed around and grabbed the side of the pit, attempting to pull himself up.
Cocking my gun, I laid a bullet into the alien’s face and watched as his flesh parted against the slug before collapsing into the pink depths and dissolving.
I crouched quickly, flattening my body against the frozen ground as I heard the other footsteps nearing.
“Where is he?” the Vithohn alien seethed. He had the same taupe skin and a large head, bald, that came back into a rounded point. His bone structure was harsh and chiseled; a wide-bridged nose and brown eyes that were always shrouded in blackness; his armor glowing with blue lines that scattered along black fabric.
“I can’t be sure,” the female said—whispered.
Her voice was familiar: human. I instantly recognized her as Tiffany Caites. Our communications officer. Looks like she was communicating just fine.