“You are one smart woman!”
Nearly bounding out of the room to go back to my room I find Kataline sitting up in the bed and holding her head.
Taking the pink drink to her, I sit down and hold the glass up. She downs it quickly and looks at me. Her eyes are red-rimmed, and she looks more than tired.
“Kerr, it’s getting worse. So much worse. Do not leave me alone again. I had to fight myself not to go find the King. I managed, but I don’t know how much longer I can stop. By the looks of things with the moon now in the window I know it won’t be long now.”
Her body is shaking and I pull her to me. “I have a plan, thanks to Bet. You and I will be leaving this ship soon and getting to Euthenia before the rest of them. We’ll get whatever has been placed in you removed and everything will be okay. You’ll be safe and I’ll get into the palace as I know an underground entrance only the Kings and Queens have ever known about. I will end the person who has taken over and we will all live happily ever after.”
Her body tenses. “You know that sounds a lot like a fairy tale, Kerr. They seldom go as planned.”
Heat fills her body, and she pushes back out of my hold. Her face is contorted and her eyes roll up. I jump on her, holding her tight to me.
She thrashes in my arms, but I refuse to let go. “Come back to me, Kataline. Don’t let them overtake you!”
Though she’s moving like a wild animal in my arms, I hold on like her life depends on it. Finally, she stops moving and starts crying.
I kiss the top of her head and ease my grip. “You okay, Baby?”
“No! No, I am not!” Her arms wrap around me as she cries into my chest. “Kerr, I will not be able to stop. This will take me over and I will be helpless to stop it.”
“Bet gave me some pills to put you into a deep sleep. If you get so bad I fear I won’t be able to help you regain yourself, I will make you take them. You’ll sleep until I get you help.” Her body shakes in my arms as she cries.
Her hands move to hold my arms and she looks at me. “Kerr, I am more afraid than I have ever been. This thing inside me is pulling at my mind. Bending it to think things which are not true. At least from what I’ve heard about your mother they can’t be true.”
“My mother? Why is she in your mind?” I ask in complete confusion.
Her blue eyes are shiny from crying and it breaks my heart. “The sinister voice keeps telling me that the King has to pay for what he did to her.”
With a shake of my head, I say, “My father did nothing but love her. It’s a trick to make you hate him. This has to be the work of whoever has taken over. Hell, for all I know I may get back to find the monster has done something to the guards we left behind and even to Caleb to make them believe something which isn’t true.”
“How can you be sure your father didn’t have something to do with her death, Kerr?”
“He was with me when she left the palace. He couldn’t have had anything to do with that. And if you could’ve seen his face when he found she was missing. Well, it was awful. When they found her body torn up the way it was he was sick for a long time.” I shake my head and know he had nothing to do with it.
“It’s just that the voice is screaming at me. It’s so damn loud. Telling me over and over how the King is not the man he seems. He’s not to be trusted. He is only to be killed.” Her face is so calm as she says these horrible things.
“It’s not real, Kataline. I can vouch for him. I was there. He loved my mother. He did, and she loved him.” I pull her to me again as I cannot stand to look into those eyes any longer.
Her eyes are telling me she is beginning to believe the lies her mind is telling her. If I lose Kataline to the device which is trying to control her, I will have lost everything.
“Don’t give in to it, Kataline. Whatever you do, place your faith in me. Not something which your mind has conjured up from the things they are putting in your head. Listen to me. Trust me. Believe me.”
She nods and sighs. “I will, Kerr. For as long as I can, I will believe in you and not the voices in my head.”
“Good, Baby. Stay with me. Don’t let me go. No matter what, don’t let me go.”
I have to move this along a lot faster. Time is running out and somehow I have to get us ready and down to the emergency shuttle before this thing takes her over.
We have to gather the things we’ll need to take with us. I think we should leave as soon as we possibly can. But we’ll need food, drinks, clothes.
“I have to get Bet to gather the things we’ll need. I know this sounds horrible. But I don’t know how else to keep you from harming my father while I’m gone the few minutes it will take to get to her.”
I take her to the hook on the wall and take the cord and bind her hands. Then run the cord over the hook, holding her up.
She looks at me with understanding and I hate I have to do this to her. “I am sorry.”
“Don’t be. I’m okay. Go get her started and I should be able to control myself for a few minutes, anyway.”
The fact she’s helping me to keep the sinister thing inside her away from my father makes me love her even more.
Running my hand behind her neck, I press my lips to hers and she eagerly accepts my kiss. “Thank you for being more than I ever expected, Kataline.”
Her smile is sweet. “You’re more than I ever expected too, Kerr. Hope never seems to leave you. No matter the odds or how crazy it all gets, you have hope.”
“Without hope what do you have?”
I hurry to go get Bet started preparing the things.
Things are looking up!
CHAPTER 7
Kataline
Pain rips through me as my body arches off the wall, trying to get off the hook. The sinister voice is loud in my head. “I will not let you do this! You must complete your task!”
“No!” I scream back at the damn voice which is plaguing me. “I won’t do it! No matter what. You cannot make me!”
My body is shaking and banging against the wall. The room seems to be spinning and I feel as if I’m falling away. Into a dark abyss.
Arms run around me and words are murmured. My head is pounding and the loudest voice screams like it’s being tortured. The other voices join in, but they’re moving further away.
The sounds keep going until all I can hear are the words, “Come back to me, Kataline.”
My breath comes back and I inhale deeply then open my eyes to find Kerr wrapped around me. His lips press against my neck.
“Kerr, I’m okay.” I can barely breathe. My body hurts.
He takes me off the hook and lets my hands free. Pushing the robe off my body, Kerr runs his hands over the back of my shoulder.
“Oww!” I flinch away from his touch.
“You have a bruise here.” His lips touch it. His hand runs over my bottom. “You have bruises all over your ass, Kataline. It looks as if you’ve been beaten.”
“I recall my body smacking hard against the wall.”
He picks me up in his strong arms and takes me to sit on the bed. “I should have strapped you to the soft bed instead of hanging you on the wall. I didn’t think about how it might try to get off the hook and hurt you in the process.”
Naked, he has me on his lap and strokes my hair. “Soon this will be over, Baby. Soon we’ll be on our way to Euthenia in a cloaked vessel. Soon whatever is inside you making this happen will be removed.”
A pain starts deep inside me. As if a knife is plunging into my stomach. I take in a sharp breath and grab at my stomach. “Kerr!”
His arms wrap around me and he holds me tight, but the pain doesn’t stop. “Kataline, don’t let it take you. We’re so close.”
My body starts shaking and I fly off his lap and into the wall. He rushes to get to me as I’m held to the wall by some invisible source.
He gets close enough to reach me and suddenly he’s thrown backwards and hits the opposite wall.
“Leave her alon
e!” the sinister voice shouts out of my mouth.
I struggle to get myself under control. But the pain in my head is back and the pain in my abdomen is nearly killing me.
I watch Kerr struggle to get back to me. And he seems to be making progress as he moves against what looks like a strong wind. Then he flies back again, pinned to the wall.
His face is turning red as it looks like he can’t breathe. I cannot allow this to happen to him.
No longer able to keep the voices away, I close my eyes and concede to the sinister one. “Take me! Leave Kerr alone and take me!”
I can hear Kerr screaming, “No! Kataline, do not give up!”
But I have to or this thing inside me will kill the man I love. Inside my mind, I tell it again, “Take me. I will fight you no longer.”
My body falls off the wall and Kerr is picking me up before I know it. I’m myself. Not the monster I thought I’d become.
“Quick, take these,” Kerr tells me as he pushes something into my mouth.
They feel small and round and I swallow to take them down. He gives me a drink of water and picks me up and puts me on the bed.
“What was that, Kerr?” I ask as my head feels light and my body listless.
“That will put you to sleep for the rest of our journey back to my planet. It will keep that thing from taking you and making you do things you don’t want to. You will sleep and I’ll carry you to where we need to go.” His hand moves over my brow and his lips touch my cheek.
“Thank you, Kerr. When I wake again this horribleness will be over, won’t it?”
He nods and presses his lips to mine. “Sleep, my love. I will take care of everything. Worry about nothing. It will be over soon.”
My eyelids feel heavy and I’m barely aware of him pulling a purple, long dress over my head and body to dress me. He lifts my body and places the golden cloak, he said is made from a protective material, around my shoulders.
He lays me back and Bet steps inside. A couple of bags in her arms. “Oh! She looks so tired. Did you give her the pills?” she asks Kerr.
“I did and they seem to be working. The thing inside her has grown so strong it nearly choked me to death,” he says as he looks through the bags.
My heart skips a beat as I hear him talk of nearly choking to death. The thing inside me is quiet. All the voices are eerily quiet. I feel as if I’m falling.
The light fades away and I am going under some deep blue water. It’s warm and cozy and I want to be here. Floating in the strange depths and feeling like this is amazing.
I never want to leave this place with its warm, soothing waters.
Just leave me here, in this place, forever!
CHAPTER 8
Kerr
With Kataline safely in a deep sleep, I take the opportunity to tell my father the plan. With a quick knock at his door, he opens it and stands in his robe, looking at me.
“Kerr, what is it?” His face is pale, and he looks weaker than I’ve ever seen him.
“Father, with Bet’s help, I’ve come up with a plan which should keep you safe.”
He clucks his tongue and turns away from me. “Son, let it go. I’ve accepted my fate.”
“Father,” I take him by the shoulder and turn him back to look at me. “I’m taking the emergency shuttle and taking Kataline to Euthenia to be scanned and the thing inside her will be removed. I’m going to use the secret tunnels to get into the palace and I will kill whoever has taken over. Then you will be able to land safely and this whole thing will be over.”
“That sounds awfully easy, Son. I don’t think whatever it is that’s inside your wife will be stopped that easily.” He turns away again and goes to sit on the edge of his bed.
“Well, your faith in me is staggering, Father!” I make sure my tone is heavily laced with sarcasm.
“I’m sorry. It seems I have more faith that whoever has done this to me will surely succeed. I do deserve it after all.” His eyes look everywhere but at me.
“You still don’t wish to tell me what you’ve done which makes you think you deserve to be destroyed?” I ask as he looks like a man who has accepted death already.
With a shake of his head, he says, “You will find out soon and you will hate me.”
“Nothing could make me hate you. You are my father. We all make mistakes. We all do things which hurt others. I’m sure you’re not to be held any more accountable than any other creature.” I place my hand on my father’s shoulder. “Let me do this and try to get some faith about things. If you have committed a terrible crime, then we can decide how you can best make up for that. Death isn’t the answer. It never is.”
With a wave of his hand, he says, “Go along and follow your plan. It won’t be long before you hear what I’ve done and then you will leave me on this ship and allow them to do what they plan to. You can remove whatever device you think is making your wife a weapon, but they will have a back-up plan. Of that I’m sure.”
My father stands up and his arms run around me. His lips touch my cheek. “Father, I feel as if this is goodbye.”
“It is, Son. Just remember I have always loved you. No matter what I’ve done, I have always loved you.” He lets me go and I feel something is so wrong.
“I wish you would tell me what you did, Father.”
His head shakes and he goes to lie on his bed. “Leave me, Son. I am so tired. So damn tired of running from what I’ve done.”
“Goodbye, Father. See you on Euthenia soon.” I leave the room and wonder what the man could have done.
Kataline thinks he had something to do with my mother’s death, but I know he didn’t. It has to be something else. No matter what it is, he doesn’t deserve to die for it.
As I get back to our room I see Kataline’s eyes opened. A smile crosses her red lips and she wiggles her finger at me.
“You’re awake!” I say with surprise.
“I am and I have a hunger for you.” She gets out of the bed and slips the cloak off and pulls the bottom of her long dress up as she makes her way to me.
“Kataline, there really isn’t time…”
Her hands are pushing at my pants and set me free quickly. Her head goes down to take me in her mouth and intense pleasure goes through me.
“Well, if we make it quick,” I say as I run my hands through her long, dark tresses.
Her mouth is hot, and she moves it quickly, igniting an instant fire inside me. A need to be inside her fills me and I pull her head up and pick her up and take her to lie on the edge of the bed.
With one quick motion, I yank her down until her ass is on the edge of the bed and push her dress up to her hips. She’s already arching them up to me as I bury myself inside her.
She moans and closes her eyes. I take her legs and hold them as I thrust into her, making her make crazy sounds as she gyrates her body.
The pills seem to have made her very aroused. And I’m loving it!
Her breasts move up and down as I plunge into her over and over. Her breathing is sporadic and uneven as she shouts, “Fuck me! Fuck me hard!”
I thought I was doing that but I increase my speed and the force of my thrusts to make her feel more. A heat starts inside her, and she runs her hands all over her body as she climaxes and shouts the word, yes, constantly.
Her body clenches around my hard cock and I let it go, seeking the ecstasy she’s enjoying. She sits up as my cock jerks inside her and her eyes fly open as she grips my ass in hands which seem to be much stronger than they should be.
And then I see the color and the blackness in her eyes holds my attention. Her lips peel back into a harsh grin. My heart stops beating.
“Kataline, what have you done?” I ask in horror.
A laugh comes from her mouth and I struggle to get her to let me go. Her strength is unreal. The whole thing is so unreal.
The deep, velvety voice speaks, “You are more enjoyable than I thought you’d be. Now, this time, let’s get rough.”
“She’s gone. It was you who put her to sleep. You have no one to blame but yourself for me being able to take her completely. Thank you.” She pulls my hair with a hand she took off my ass.
Then her other hand takes another large lock of my hair and she pulls my face to hers. Our lips touch and her teeth take my bottom lip between them.
Her bite is harsh and I taste blood as I feel the pinch of her breaking my skin. I press my hands to her narrow shoulders and try to gain my freedom.
Alien Romance Box Set: Alien Former: Sci-Fi Alien Romance (Books 1-5) Page 89