Seducing The Sacred Alien (SciFi Alien Ménage Romance)

by Meg Ripley

  Seducing The Sacred Alien

  An Alien Menage Romance

  Meg Ripley

  Copyright © 2015 by Meg Ripley

  www.redlilypublishing.com

  All rights reserved. No parts of this book may be used or reproduced in any form without written permission from the authors, with the exception of brief quoted passages left in an online review. This book is a fictional story. All characters, names, and situations are of the authors’ creation. Any resemblances to actual situations or to persons who are alive or dead are purely coincidental.

  This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only; this copy is not available for resale or to give to another reader aside from any transaction through Amazon’s e-book lending program.

  Disclaimer

  This book is intended for readers age 18 and over. It contains mature situations and language that may be objectionable to some readers.

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  "You know, when I signed up for this study abroad program, I really thought it was going to be more engaging than this," River muttered, adjusting her backpack so it didn't dig so deeply into her shoulders.

  "How is this not engaging?" Jordan asked, "You are standing on one of the most impressive feats of architecture in the history of humankind. It took hundreds of years to create this one wall."

  "If you had been paying attention to the lecture that might also take hundreds of years to finish, you would know that it actually isn't one wall. It is apparently the Great Walls and Fortifications and Other Stuff of China."

  Jordan laughed.

  "I've heard this lecture before. I promise it doesn't take hundreds of years. Just a few decades."

  River took a few more steps along the top of the wall and gazed out over the view. It truly was beautiful. The trees and rolling hills seemed to stretch out into eternity, an image that stood in stark contrast to what many people envision when they think of China.

  "If you've heard this lecture before, why did you come back to listen to it again?"

  Jordan shrugged.

  "I've been studying abroad for two years now and, technically, I’ve already completed all of the program requirements. I'm just not ready to go home yet."

  River sighed.

  "This is the last thing I need to complete my Master's degree. I'm not even entirely sure I chose China."

  "You don't like it here?"

  "No. I mean, I do like it here, that's not it. It's just…." she trailed off as she tried to come up with the right words, "I feel like they are so intensive with the courses and lectures, explaining every single tiny little detail of everything, that it has kind of taken some of the wonder and mystery out of it."

  "You want wonder and mystery?"

  River looked at Jordan, watching his startling blue eyes sparkle in the late afternoon sunlight. She hadn't stopped thinking about those eyes since she first saw them when she arrived for her study abroad program, and the enticing sparkle wasn't helping.

  "Yes."

  He took her by her hand and pulled her over to the side of the wall. Leaning over slightly, he pointed down toward the base.

  "How about that?"

  River looked down, but didn't see anything particularly wonderful or mysterious beneath them.

  "What are you pointing at?"

  Jordan leaned further until River was concerned he might tip over the edge and the excitement of her trip would have to be attempting to rescue him, or recovering his body after it rolled down one of the hills. He pointed with more insistence.

  "Do you see those guards?"

  River noticed a dip in the wall that seemed to curve in with a bend in the land so that it wasn't clearly visible from their vantage point. Two guards stood on either side of the curve, and a third stood several feet in front. They were motionless, their eyes fixed on something in the distance. River had the strangest feeling that she was seeing something that wasn't really there, as if she was glancing back in time.

  "I don't understand."

  "Exactly. Why would they be standing down there all alone? I've been here more times than I can count in the last two years, and they are always there. Three guards, never moving, never saying anything. Don't you wonder why they're there and what they could be guarding?"

  "They never move?"

  Jordan shook his head.

  "They stand there all day and all night. There is one two-minute window in the afternoon and in the morning when the guards change, but other than that, they never move. There isn't any ceremony or anything when the guards change. They just step out of position and walk away, and then the others get into place."

  River felt a tingle of excitement roll through her. She looked at Jordan over her shoulder.

  "And you have no idea why they're there or what they are guarding?"

  Jordan shook his head slowly, a mischievous smile curving his lips. River glanced back at the guards, bit her bottom lip, and looked back at him.

  "I wonder if we could find out."

  She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper as they stepped forward to follow the rest of the student group that had already moved a few yards ahead of them. They passed by a guard tower built into the wall and River felt Jordan grab her by the wrist and tug her into the doorway.

  River pressed a hand over her mouth to muffle a laugh as Jordan pushed them further into the doorway so that her back was to the wall and he stood just inches away. She was suddenly aware of his body near her and met his eyes.

  "The guards are about to change," he whispered.

  River took a breath and nodded, relieved he had broken the tension, even if only slightly. He peered around the edge of the doorway and then came back into the space.

  "We will only have a few minutes to get down there and not get caught by the guards. Are you ready?"

  River smiled and Jordan took her hand again. A second later, he ducked out of the doorway and started running in the opposite direction of the tour group. Suddenly he climbed up on the edge of the wall and glanced down at her.

  "Come on."

  "What are you doing?" River asked, nervousness making her voice high and thin.

  "You're going to have to trust me," he said and gave her a gentle pull to get her up onto the wall beside him.

  She could hear the shouts of people who saw them, but before she had a chance to react, Jordan tugged her hand and they jumped from the edge of the wall. River gave a short scream as she fell through the air, but a moment later she landed.

  "Side wall," Jordan whispered.

  River shook her head at him and they scrambled to their feet, running a short distance down the side wall until they reached a section close to the top of a nearby hill. They jumped again and this time, River felt herself hit grass, lose her balance, and tumble down to the base of the wall.

  "This is definitely an adventure," she said as Jordan helped her up.

  He laughed softly and put a finger to his lips to quiet her.

  "One minute," he whispered.

  They pressed to the wall, hunkering together close
to the ground so that they could hide from the people leaning over the edge of the wall to see them. River eased closer to the corner and peered back at the main wall. The guards were only a few feet away, but didn't seem to have noticed them.

  Without any notice, the guards standing near the wall suddenly stepped forward to get in line with the one in front of them, turned their backs to River and Jordan, and marched away in silence.

  "Go!" Jordan hissed and started running toward the place where the guards had stood.

  River followed, watching as Jordan disappeared into the wall.

  ****

  The breath caught in River's throat when Jordan seemed to sink into the wall, but in her next step, she saw that he had discovered the dip in the wall and was standing at a narrow door. His fingers traced the letters of an engraving, softened and weathered with age, in the center of the stone door.

  River looked at it, but she couldn't read the characters. She could feel the seconds ticking by. There was a rusted latch on the door and she reached for it, doubting it would work. At any moment, the other guards would come into place and catch them. She pushed harder on the latch and felt the rust grinding to powder beneath her palm and the edges biting into her skin.

  The sound of grass-muffled footsteps filled their ears and Jordan pushed her hand out of the way to grab the latch. He pressed it, shaking it. Suddenly the latch gave way and the door shifted, opening just enough that they could slip through and push it closed behind them.

  Darkness engulfed them, sharpening their other senses so that River felt like she could hear the blood rushing through her veins. She tried to control her breathing, but the panic at nearly getting caught by the guards made it ragged and heavy as it poured from her lungs. A soft glow appeared in front of her and she saw that Jordan had turned the flashlight on his phone on and was holding it beneath his shirt to filter the light.

  He placed a finger on his lips to quiet her again and gestured deeper into the space they had entered. She followed him cautiously, aware of the foreboding silence from outside that told her the second shift of guards had taken their place.

  "What do we do now?" River whispered.

  "Those guards will be there until morning, so we are stuck in here until then."

  River's head fell back and she gave a sigh of exasperation. When she said she wanted adventure, she hadn't meant that she wanted to get trapped inside the Great Wall overnight. At least she had some bottled water and a few snacks tucked in her backpack she had reserved for getting through the lectures.

  "As long as we are stuck in here, we might as well do a little exploration," she finally said, deciding that sitting around on the floor and bemoaning her current state of existence was not a productive use of their time.

  "Absolutely," Jordan said, brightening up.

  "Could you read those words engraved on the door?"

  "'Knowledge is Power.'"

  River looked at him quizzically.

  "Really? I wonder what that means."

  Jordan shook his head and they continued along the narrow corridor they had entered when they stepped through the door. The light from his cell phone illuminated just enough space in front of them that they were able to follow the turns and curves of the corridor. Suddenly the beam fell on the sharp edge of a staircase that looked like it was carved directly into the stone as it disappeared down into the darkness.

  River glanced at Jordan. He shrugged at her and the two stepped down onto the next step, both pausing for a moment as if worried there would be some sort of alarm or trap that would alert the guards outside to their wanderings. When nothing happened, River took another step down and soon they were making their way down the stairs, her hand grazing the wall beside her to keep her steady on the steep passage.

  "Do you have any idea what the whole 'Knowledge is Power' thing is all about?" she asked, glancing over at Jordan who seemed to be concentrating intensely on making his way down the steps.

  "No. The characters looked weathered, so they were definitely old, but they didn't look like someone just randomly them carved there. They weren't graffiti or something somebody did quickly. I've never heard that phrase used when talking about the Wall."

  "Neither have I."

  River took another step and felt herself stumble. Jordan reached down and grabbed her arm to stabilize her and help her back to her feet. She looked down at the steps at her feet and then back in the direction from which they came.

  "When did we start going up?" she asked.

  "What?"

  "We were going down the stairs. When did we start going up?"

  Jordan looked back and then up the stairs ahead of them. They had been walking down the stairs but now all of the stairs they could see behind them and in front of them showed that they were climbing up.

  "I don't know."

  River watched Jordan run back down the stairs for a few feet and hold up his phone to shine the light down the staircase.

  "I can't even see where it changed," he said.

  "What do we do? Do we just keep going up or do we try to go back down?"

  River was starting to feel nervous. The sudden, unnoticed change of direction was disorienting, and she realized that she didn't even realize how long they had been walking, making her unsure of how far from the door they must have gone.

  "We can't be too far from the top of the wall. Let's just keep climbing for a few more minutes."

  River nodded and they started climbing again, silent now as they both concentrated on counting the steps beneath their feet and trying to orient themselves in the space. They climbed for several more minutes before the light from Jordan's phone shone onto the top of the staircase and what looked like a trap door set into the ceiling.

  He handed River the phone so that she could hold the light steady on the door while he tried to open it. The metal handle on the bottom didn't look rusted or aged like the one outside and he wrapped his hand firmly around it. He gave a hard tug and the door fell open, forcing him to step back so that it didn't hit him. River caught him by flattening his hands on his back, indulging herself for just a moment by letting her fingers trail over the muscles that she could feel beneath his shirt.

  Jordan pulled the door the rest of the way down and a bright light poured into the staircase. River immediately noticed that it didn't look like sunlight. She followed him up through the door and the moment she stepped up onto the smooth white floor, she heard the trapdoor slam closed as if triggered by their weight.

  River gasped at the loud sound and stumbled back, hitting something hard behind her. She turned and saw a wall of what looked like thick, clear glass. Taking a step back, she turned to look at Jordan. He was a few feet away, his hand pressed against an identical wall in front of him. She glanced around, looking for an opening, but they were standing in a fully enclosed glass cube.

  ****

  River's eyes adjusted to the stark white light of the space and she noticed snowflakes drifting through the air around them as if they stood in a snow globe. The flakes sparkled in the light and River realized that they weren't white, but silver, and disappeared as they reached the floor.

  She extended her hand to catch the flakes in her palm. As they touched her skin, they seemed to melt, creating a pool of liquid that dripped like mercury off of the sides and splashed, then disappeared, on the gleaming white floor.

  "What are these?" she asked, her voice dropping to a whisper as she extended her hand to show Jordan the silvery liquid.

  The flakes streaked across his face and sparkled in his dark hair. He shook his head, unable to come up with any words. She stroked her thumb across his cheekbone. The silver liquid spread across his skin and faded as if dissipating back into the air. She could see her hand trembling as the fear set in and she turned back to the glass wall.

  Flattening her palms against it, she leaned close to the wall and stared beyond it at the room around her. The light seemed to reflect off of the gleaming walls and s
he noticed what appeared to be empty picture frames crafted of iridescent glass positioned at regular intervals along the walls. Long, narrow silver bars separated the frames. There was no furniture in the room and she didn't see any doors or windows.

  "What is this place?" she whispered.

  Her voice came out of her powdery and strained as if the words themselves were afraid to enter the strange space. She saw Jordan's mouth open like he was starting to say something, but the sound of shouts from somewhere outside of the room stopped him. River stepped closer to Jordan and felt his hand slip down her arm to hold hers comfortingly.

  Suddenly a section of the wall across from them slid open and a gorgeous, but frantic-looking young man burst into the room. He didn't acknowledge them, but turned and touched his hand to the wall. The open section slammed closed and he turned his hand sharply. River heard a loud hiss and click like a tremendous lock sliding into place but didn't see any change in the appearance of the wall.

  "Hey," Jordan said, pounding on the wall of the cube with his palm, "Hey, can you get us out of here?"

  The young man's eyes snapped to them and a startled look crossed his face. River noticed a glint of light reflect from him and saw two iridescent gems embedded in the skin at the outer corner of one eye. She wanted to touch the gems; to run her fingers across them and press her hands to the hard chest that rose and fell raggedly beneath his shirt.

  Still ignoring them, the man wrapped his fingers around one of the silver bars between the picture frames and pulled it out of the wall.

  There was another shout from outside of the room and River heard loud thuds like someone ramming the wall near where it had slid open to let the man inside. He rushed toward the glass cube and thrust the silver bar forward. It slid effortlessly through the glass and the end bloomed like a metal flower with several curved petals that overlapped just enough to create a cup that caught the silver flakes as they fell.