Alien Romance Box Set: Alien Former: Sci-Fi Alien Romance (Books 1-5)

by Ashley L. Hunt

  I squeeze my fists hard enough to hurt them, but it’s not enough. She’s the second person I could do nothing to save.

  I feel useless. I feel cold. I feel alone.

  I start shaking, freezing. Something is wrong with me. I can’t control my limbs. I look down on my body, and I see a black, oozing substance coming off my body and connecting to the cube.

  And then, excruciating pain comes. I scream, roar, try to pull my skin off my body, do anything to stop the pain.

  “Hey! Hey!!! Wake up! What’s wrong with you?”

  I open my eyes. I’m on the ground. I look around me and see gigantic trees and a young lady with a bizarre, brownish complexion looking at me.

  “What...what’s wrong? Where are am I?”

  “You’re in Zeania, the Phadh planet. What’s wrong? Did you forget?” She stops, waiting for an answer. When she understands that I can’t give her one, she keeps talking. “Five minutes after we got here, a flash came from your pocket, and you passed out. You’ve been out for an hour now, and it’s getting dark. We have to find a shelter.”

  It was the cube again, right? The fucking, Nusae Cube. Fuck. I’m on the verge of pulling it off my pocket and tossing it on the ground, but I know it’s futile. It’ll probably fly back to me. But this vision was fucking twisted. The girl dying, me getting covered by that black thing.

  And then, somehow, out of nowhere, everything clicks inside me. At that moment, I finally remember who I was, what was my mission back on Primordial Earth, why my people vanished.

  “Alyce, we have to go. Now. We have a mission to complete,” I say to her.

  She seems surprised for a moment but doesn’t say a thing. We’re both trapped in this hellhole for now, but I’m unreasonably happy. I finally remember who I am.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Eladia

  Three days...three days have passed since the brothers with the gray masks suddenly appeared in the training room. For a Class 1 spaceship, four people living in a tight place is fairly comfortable. For me? Well, it’s obnoxious. It was hard enough having to put up with Cross alone, but now that two more people from his organization were added to the crew, the level of discomfort rose significantly.

  With Cross spending most of his time plotting something with the siblings, I spend most of my time alone. Not having a sparring partner anymore, I end up training all day, throwing hollow punches on a punching bag, trying to let off some steam.

  I can’t keep my mind off him. Jay is in my mind all the time. When I’m sleeping, when I’m eating, when I’m training, I can’t stop thinking about him. What he’ll say about my new haircut or what he will do when we first meet? Will he kiss me? Will he hug me? Will he...?

  “You’re doing it wrong.”

  I lose my focus in the middle of a high kick and almost sprain my ankle. Luckily, the first thing that Cross taught me was how to fall and not injure myself.

  “What the hell? What’s your problem, sneaking out on me like that?”

  It’s Alec, the blabbermouth.

  “If I were your enemy, you would be dead by now. You have to be ready to do anything, anytime. Hasn’t Swamp taught you that?”

  I sense a judgmental tone in his voice. “You think you’re better than me?”

  He smiles; I can tell even with his face hiding behind his mask. “It’s not a matter of what I think. I’m sure that I’m better than you. You think that because you had a rough year you’re in better shape than me? You’re greatly mistaken,” he says and takes another step towards me.

  Immediately, I feel an ominous aura coming from him; this man isn’t kidding. I lower my head and breath in. I relax my muscles and lower my guard, welcoming him in.

  ‘First rule of assassination: be always perfectly aware of your surroundings.’ Cross’ first rule clearly echoes in my mind. Back then, I didn’t quite get what he meant. Now, I understand.

  The shriek of his shoes alerts me that he launched an attack against me. I avoid it easily, slipping from one stance to the other. Almost instantly, I take a step back with my left foot and dodge his punch. I do it in such a way, though, that my new footing is much more favorable to launch my next attack. So, when I finally open my eyes and punch him right in the face, I’m sure I won’t miss.

  Surprised, he isn’t able to completely dodge my hit and thus he uses his hands as a shield. I feel the impact of my fist’s momentum in my whole body, but I know that the fight is not over, not by a long shot.

  “Shit, you’re good after all. Swamp really taught you everything he knows, right? But, I now see what’s your greatest weakness. He was right after all.”

  What? Cross said that I’m not ready? But...but last time he said the exact opposite thing. He was the one that said that my training was complete.

  ‘Second rule: don’t assume anything about anyone. Most enemies hide a trick up their sleeves. Find it, analyze it, use it.’

  I remember that Alec is the one with the tiny keyboard hiding in his sleeves. I quickly get the feeling that his specialty is electronics, but I’m not sure how that can help him in a fist fight. Or how that can help me beat him. I’m sure he’s just standing there, probably looking at me with a cocky smile, doing something to the system with his keyboard.

  Still, there’s nothing I can do other than waiting for him to use his trick and then destroy him.

  “Hmm. You’re indeed better than I expected. You’re trying to analyze me, right? To find that trick up my sleeve and all?”

  What then? Can he read my mind?

  “Don’t flatter yourself. You’re not the only one that has been trained by the Swamp. To become a full-fledged member of the Organization, you have to spend a full year of training with each of the high-ranking members. Ocean covers the first stage of training, the part where you learn what your specialty is,” he says.

  While he’s talking, the lights suddenly turn off. I’m blind for a moment, but I have enough time to hide behind one of the room’s many counters.

  “Do you think darkness can help you? I’ve lived in the darkness too long to be intimidated by it!” I yell at him.

  Slowly, but steadily, I regain my sight enough to be able to detect movements and figures. The moment I decide to pass into the counterattack, the lights turn back on.

  “Swamp is the one that teaches you how to survive and kill your victims with deceit and pure skill. He hones your abilities and makes you a true, killing machine.”

  I can’t see for a moment; I remain stunned, uncovered, rubbing my eyes while trying to regain my sight. When I’m sure I can handle the pain, the lights turn off again. Once again I’m blind, only, this time, it takes longer for me to regain control of my sight. And just when I’m confident enough that I can counter him, he uses his small keyboard to turn on the lights again.

  It’s torture.

  I’m thinking of closing my eyes, fighting using my other senses, but then, a piercing shrill coming from the ship’s speakers makes me lose control of my hearing as well. I...I can’t do anything.

  “You cheater! You coward! Using dirty tricks to stop me from kicking your butt...is that your way of fighting?”

  I sense the dull side of a knife on my neck. He has managed to sneak behind me and trap me. “We’re not soldiers, Chronicler. We’re above that. We’re assassin’s, fighting using the shadows, stopping at nothing to get what we want. Rule number three: there’s no dirty trick as long as it gets the job done.”

  Shit. He’s right. Cross used to say that all the time, and we used to fight for it. As long as it gets the job done, there’s nothing that it’s unethical.

  I take a deep breath and think. These words come as a revelation to me now, under Mist’s strong grip. Somewhere inside me, I gave up without even trying. So, when I quickly use my hand to stop him from further moving his blade and cutting my neck, he leaves his body uncovered. I kick him in the balls to cause him sudden pain and then throw him down with a complex handle, removing his mask in
the process. I see that his cocky smile has been wiped off his face.

  “Well, it seems like you’re right. But you’re talking too much for an assassin, do you know that?”

  I see him staring at me and then I remember that these brothers always come in a pair. I grab one of the training clubs we were using with Cross during our sparring and stop Nebula’s hand on its way.

  “You’re getting predictable,” I say, self-conscious of my great victory.

  “You’re talking big for someone who doesn’t know anything about the Mystery you’re investigating all these years.”

  What? What does that have to do with our fight?

  “What are you talking about? The Nusae were destroyed so that the Phadh could rise to power. Is that what you mean? Isn’t that the end of the Great Mystery?”

  A smirk appears on his face. I want to punch him.

  “You really don’t have a clue. Weird, Cross is the one that teaches us about the story of the Nusae. In this stage, you should have already learned everything about them and what we’re fighting for.”

  I feel lost. Cross hasn’t said anything about the Nusae throughout the last year we’re living together, trying to get away from the black-maskers.

  I release him and help him get on his feet. “Tell me. What do you know about the Great Mystery? What do you mean that there’s more to it?”

  He seems surprised that I was so quick to control my temper. To be honest, I’m not sure how I did it myself.

  “I don’t know if I’m the one that should tell you about something so important. Swamp would have been better, but--”

  “Cross,” I interrupt him, “won’t tell me a thing. He wants to be the hero, to become a martyr. If there’s more to the Great Mystery, I have to know. I have to let Jay know about it.”

  “Believe me, your friend already knows. Pyro told him the truth many months ago. You’re the only one that has no idea what the Great Mystery is really about.”

  Something cracks inside me. I want to kill him on the spot. My mind works in ways that I wouldn’t think possible a year ago, but now his life is just a price to pay to appease my anger. I raise my hand, not able to control my actions anymore when--

  “Enough! Alec, Arlen, return to the bridge. You have overstepped your boundaries for the last time.”

  Cross is furious. He’s more than furious; his face is a twisted mask of his usually charming demeanor. He’s genuinely angry with them. For a moment, I honestly feel sorry for them. Then, I feel ashamed. I was almost ready to take a man’s life just to satiate my rage.

  Still, they don’t seem all that much worried. It seems that Swamp isn’t their superior anymore, and they aren’t afraid of him.

  I don’t care, though. Now that we’re alone in the training room, he has lied to me for the last time.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Jay

  It has been four days now, give or take. Walking through this strange forest makes me lose my sense of time. We get only a couple hours of sunlight every day, and that’s an overstatement. Alyce doesn’t seem all that much affected by it, but I...well I don’t want to stay on this fucking planet another minute.

  “Eventually, you’ll have to eat you know? Or else you’ll die of starvation,” she says.

  We’re taking a break from a long morning of hiking. Alyce was pretty clear when she said that she wouldn’t allow me to start a fire to cook these raw things she calls food. They look like meat; undercooked, tasteless meat. But hell, they don’t taste like it.

  “I’m an Esuh of the Two Faces, a Prime Officer and a--”

  “Yeah, yeah. I know. You’re someone important. But you’re unlucky you’re not a vegetarian. In my planet, fire is forbidden, and the animals live happily because the Phadh don’t need primitive food sources like meat to survive. It’s one of the last natural paradises in the Known Galaxy and the reason we don’t allow anyone other than ourselves inside.”

  Please! Let me shut her up. Then we can cook her carcass and eat it. She surely seems delicious, Dark Jay comments in my head.

  Frankly, I find it difficult to disagree with him now. This young girl, which I learned isn’t so young after all, seems to never stop talking. Especially after the night of the vision. Well, maybe that was my mistake. I shouldn’t have told her everything about Eladia and the other Esuh.

  But, being way too excited that I finally discovered the fate of my people, I couldn’t hold back from sharing the news with someone...anyone. It still feels like there’s something important missing, though.

  I take one last glance at the “uncooked meat” and after I hold back a strong feeling of vile climbing up my esophagus, I toss it on the ground. “We’ll be leaving in five minutes. I want to make sure we’ll arrive at that temple you talked about by tomorrow. We have wasted way too much time already.”

  Eladia is waiting for me somewhere in this galaxy, and I don’t want to keep her waiting anymore. I have so many things I want to share with her about the Esuh medicine, the culture of my people, and love. I’m so excited I’d be laughing if I wasn’t trapped in an overgrown forest with semi-sentient trees.

  “Well, no matter how much we hurry, it’ll get us another two days before we get there. So it would be nice if you slowed down a bit and started relaxing maybe? I don’t know. I’ll just lie here and wait for you to calm down or whatever,” she says and winks at me.

  Honestly, her arrogance knows no bounds. She’s so full of herself that if I closed her nose, she would explode. Still, she’s my guide, and I’m her kidnapper. I must admit that it’s not an ideal setting, but it’s the only one I have. If it wasn’t for that asshole Pyro, I would have found another way to infiltrate this planet that it wouldn’t include babysitting a 300-years old teenager.

  I walk away from the camp and decide to scout the path ahead. You can never be too cautious, even in a forest world like Zeania. There are animals back on my planet that can kill you in mere seconds without ever realizing what’s going on.

  You mean were; Sciri doesn’t exist anymore. We made sure to destroy it after we fled.

  Hearing his voice deep into my head makes the pain of my mistake all the more real.

  “Shut up. I know. It was...a mistake. Just leave it at that.”

  A mistake would be to eat that thing she gave you. What we did was nonsense. Instead of standing up against the Nusae, we fled like hunted Tidrey.

  I stop and once again try to hold back from punching the trunk of a tree. It would only hurt me, not him.

  Even so, I have to say something to hurt him the way he hurts me every time he talks. “You don’t have a saying on this, Jay. You weren’t alive back then. You were just a symbiotic parasite made to follow my orders. If it wasn’t for the Nusae Cube, you would still be just that. A parasite.”

  I sense his anger, but there’s nothing he can do. This is the truth, and he just has to swallow it.

  The Esuh used the dark matter, the think covering their skins turning it ash gray, to enhance their inner abilities. That’s why they were called Esuh of the Two Faces and not of the Two Minds in the first place.

  We are, dumbass. Not they. They were your people, and you refer to them in the third person? And then I’m the one that doesn’t get a saying on this.

  Shit, he’s right. He’s always so fucking right. It’s just that after my memories came back, everything is so jumbled up in my head.

  There’s a moment of silence before I sense something hot piercing my foot. The pain comes a moment later, making me roar in agony before falling on my knees. Someone shoot me with a laser gun.

  “Who did this? Where are you? Come out and face me,” I bellow.

  When a woman appears out of nowhere, wearing full armor, even covering her face, I know something is wrong. She has the same tattoo as I, the mark of the First Kinds.

  “Who send you?” I say, but she doesn’t even flinch. “It doesn’t matter. Finding your dead body will be more than enough for them to stop
chasing me!” I say confidently, although I don’t feel so sure inside.

  My skills without the help of the other Jasih are not enough to kill her. But, something tells me that if I give in to him now and let him take full control, I won’t be able to take back my body from him anytime soon.

  “You know too much for your own good, alien. You should have died back in the hospital when you could. It would have been easier for you,” she says.

  I try to measure her strength, but then I spot Alyce climbing up the trunk of a tree, slowly getting close to the First Kind woman from above. Somehow, she managed to climb onto one of the gigantic trees and get in position for an attack from above, without the female First Kind realizing. So much for a First Kind, right? Things have changed so much since I was a First Kind.