Invasion of the Alien Snatchers

by Fiona Roarke

  “And where exactly am I ‘supposed’ to be?”

  The woman took a step closer as the four hooded figures shrank back against the walls, as if expecting his question to unleash her fury. One figure stumbled against the curtains covering a small window, making them jerk against the rod.

  The prospect of the strange woman’s wrath was fine with him. Bring it.

  “A prophecy has been fulfilled with your arrival,” she stated as if it were completely obvious.

  Space potatoes! He did not like the sound of that.

  “Oh?” he asked in as nonchalant a tone as he could manufacture. “What prophecy?”

  She took another step closer. The pungent scent of wood smoke combined with something like burnt spices wafted ahead of her, assaulting his lungs. It was bitter and acrid, like her tone.

  “A prophecy that told me, Anya, the Druid high priestess of these woods, that a man would fall from the sky and survive a great and fiery crash.”

  Huh. Accurate, unfortunately.

  “That man would be the only one worthy of becoming my mate.”

  Riker grinned. “Is this a joke?” He looked around, desperately searching for a second escape beyond the door surrounded by the other robed figures. Nothing. The only escape was the door they’d all just come through. He wished the redhead wasn’t a dream. He could use her help right about now.

  “No. This is not a joke.” Anya moved closer. The edge of her robe swirled only inches from his boot. “You will be my mate! You and I will combine as it has been foreseen!” Her voice lifted, as did her face toward the ceiling.

  Creepily, the other four echoed from their places by the door, “As it has been foreseen.”

  “You will then go through the purification ritual as it was foreseen!” Anya moved another step closer, her pungent, smoke-scented robe covering his boot tip, her body inches from touching him. The others chanted, “As it was foreseen.”

  “If you survive,” she said, and then paused as if for dramatic effect, “well, then you will be unmanned so that no other female may have you or claim you furthermore.”

  “No claim furthermore…furthermore,” the four chanted in an eerie tone.

  “And finally you will become my lifelong thrall.” Anya lowered her head, opened her eyes and stared at him as if he was the bringer of all her dreams come true. Her expression seemed eager, like she expected him to be grateful for this honor.

  Riker did his best not to sputter with fury. “Combined? Unmanned? Thrall? I don’t think so. I’d rather not be a part of any purification ritual, especially if my reward is to be unmanned and turned into a slave. Thanks, but no thanks!”

  Her gray gaze widened. “You don’t have a choice. It has been foreseen.”

  “Don’t I?” He rose to his full height, which surpassed hers by a few inches, keeping his weight on his good leg. He balanced his butt against the table to compensate for his hurt leg and hoped he wasn’t about to fall into a heap at the hem of her smoke-scented violet robe, which would absolutely happen if he took a single step.

  “But the prophecy has been foretold. You will be my mate.”

  “Already foretold,” the others chanted. He wanted them to shut it.

  How to get out of this bind? The green-eyed redhead danced across his brain. They’d met briefly at the RMG prep school graduation ceremony. He was a guest of honor, she a new graduate. The elusive memory made him think of a possible way out of Anya’s plans.

  “What if I already have a mate?” he asked, lifting one eyebrow.

  Her mouth fell open. “You already have a mate? No. You can’t. I won’t allow it!”

  “Lady, trust me. I am not the guy for you. I will not participate in your ritual nor will I combine with you, whatever that means, and hear me when I tell you I will never be any woman’s thrall!”

  Her hand lifted suddenly and opened near his face. Shimmering pink powder covered her palm. She blew air across it from pursed lips. The pink dust gathered into a plume and then plastered across his face.

  In the next second he saw black and felt the ominous sensation of falling, but was out cold before he hit the hard wooden floor.

  Chapter Three

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  Elise left Riker reluctantly, knowing he couldn’t hike through the woods on a possibly broken leg, or even a sprained one, presuming she could even keep him awake to attempt it.

  Relief and disappointment registered equally when he responded to her second kiss but shortly fell unconscious again. His gaze pegged her with a look of…what? Interest? Desire? Concern? What the heck are you doing kissing me, you earthling stranger?

  “Riker? Are you awake?” He didn’t speak, just stared until his eyes slid shut.

  Elise pretended she hadn’t just kissed him awake. She leaned closer, taking a deep breath of his scent, letting out an appreciative moan, which also didn’t wake him. Just as well.

  She risked another kiss—such a hardship—just to make sure he wasn’t awake. He kissed her back gently, moving his lips against hers in a soft dance as old as time itself, licking her bottom lip—superbly divine—and deepening the already exhilarating lip-lock.

  Elise certainly enjoyed it, but apparently he was kissing her in his sleep. When she withdrew, his eyes opened briefly as if concerned and then slid closed once more. She thought he might be smiling again in his sleep, but perhaps that was just wishful thinking on her part. Maybe instead he was thinking about how he’d arrest her and put her in jail for being a kissing bandit. Fanciful.

  She studied the splint once more, unable to tell from just looking if his leg was broken, sprained or merely bruised from the crash. If it was broken it likely wasn’t a compound fracture. Good news, but still a complication for getting him out of the woods.

  Elise brushed her fingertips down the side of his face and whispered, “I’ll be back for you. I promise.” With a final glance over one shoulder and a check to ensure no one was lurking in the area, she headed away from the cabin and crash site at a fast clip to find some sort of conveyance to move him. If needed, she’d construct a litter out of what she carried and pull him through the forest to the rendezvous point, although given his muscled weight and stature, it might take her a week to drag him that far.

  Luckily, that wasn’t necessary. A couple of miles away, she discovered a nice house nestled in the woods at the edge of what looked like a very nice secluded neighborhood. Parked in the driveway was the perfect vehicle for her needs and the keys were in the ignition. She debated knocking on the door, even moving in that direction to do so, but decided to ask forgiveness later instead of permission now.

  When she turned back toward the vehicle, it was to see a young boy coming around the side of the house.

  “Hi,” he said, tilting his head as if wondering what she was doing.

  “Hi,” Elise said, giving him a bright smile. “What’s your name?”

  “Charlie. What’s yours?”

  “I’m Elise.”

  He pointed to her utility belt and the Defender. “What’s that for?”

  “Oh, it’s just a megaphone to make my voice louder sometimes.” Elise hated to lie, but didn’t feel comfortable explaining that the Defender erased the memories of humans so they wouldn’t learn that aliens roamed their planet in plain sight. Nor did she want to use it on a child.

  She quickly turned the conversation to the vehicle. “Whose bike is this? Is it your dad’s?”

  The boy grinned. “No. It’s my mom’s.”

  Elise’s eyebrows rose. “Really? Awesome. Do you think she’d mind if I borrowed it for a little while, if I promise to bring it right back? I have a hurt friend in the woods. I was hoping to rent this and carry him back to our car.” She pulled cash out of her pants pocket and offered it to the child.

  Charlie stared at the money, but shook his head. “Do you really promise to bring it back when you’re done?”

  Elise raised three fingers on her right hand, lifted it in the air a
nd said, “I promise I will bring it back.”

  “Okay. You can take it for your hurt friend. I don’t think she’d mind helping someone that is hurt.” He smiled.

  “Thank you so much, Charlie. I truly appreciate it.”

  After having borrowed—well, procured with the permission of a small child…okay, stolen from Charlie’s mom—a vehicle to help move the wounded Riker, Elise rode the motorcycle as far as she could through the woods toward the cabin. She got off and walked it into a small glade of tiny trees surrounded by larger trees, backed it into the perfect space to cover it up, pushed the kickstand down and headed the fifty feet to where she’d left him.

  Once she got Riker out of the cabin and to this awesome motorcycle, she’d take him to the rendezvous spot, secure him and promptly return the borrowed bike.

  Maybe Charlie’s mom wouldn’t even notice it had been gone. She would leave some cash with the boy for what little gas she used and hope she wouldn’t simply be arrested for grand theft motorcycle.

  The cabin’s front door was open. Elise went on alert. On the edge of the clearing, she took out her search device.

  Riker was where she’d left him, but there were five humanoids in the cabin with him. Interesting. Humanoid, but not human and not Alpha. She cleared the device to try again and got the same reading, a handful of humanoids. Who were these strangers? Were they the ones who’d brought Riker to the cabin? How were they not human? If not human, were they another race of aliens? If so, they weren’t supposed to be here without permission from Alpha-Prime.

  <^> <^> <^>

  Elise crept to the side window and peeked through. The curtains had shifted in her absence and she saw Riker standing by the table. Abruptly, a tall woman with white-blonde hair vividly streaked with royal blue lifted her palm and blew dust or something into his face. He collapsed to the floor in a heap of tattered uniform and muscular limbs. Hand on her Defender, Elise rounded the corner to the front door, ready to blast her way in and throw Riker on her shoulders if need be to get him out of here.

  She listened at the open front door, peeking in quickly and retreating to get a mental snapshot of the room and where the others were located.

  “Get him on the table again,” a low, commanding voice said. Elise heard the distinct shuffle of feet on the wooden floor. Another quick peek showed four hooded figures in gray robes had already put him back on the flat surface and scurried away.

  Elise eased forward to take a longer look into the room through the slit of narrow space between doorframe and door. The woman in the violet robe approached the table and stared down at Riker. An unjustified streak of jealousy raced down Elise’s spine as the other woman looked at him with desire.

  If Miss Blonde Streaky Blue Hair bent to kiss him like Elise had, she would step into the cabin and blast the woman with the Defender. It should knock her out, as long as she wasn’t Alpha. The search device said she wasn’t, just humanoid and not human. Elise was unsure of how the Defender would work on another non-Earth species. Perhaps she shouldn’t count on it.

  The woman didn’t kiss Riker. Instead, she gripped his shoulders with her hands, shaking him roughly as if trying to wake him up. He seemed to rouse, but didn’t move.

  “You may sit up,” she said. Riker immediately rose to a sitting position on the table, his gaze straight ahead, staring at nothing or possibly the empty side wall. “Now that you’re in a more cooperative mood, we’ll try again, shall we?”

  Riker nodded jerkily, as if he had no choice in the matter. Had this violet-robed woman blown some kind of drug in his face and enthralled him? Was she some sort of backwoods witch?

  Elise had never believed in supernatural things, thinking there was usually a good explanation for strange goings on if you looked hard enough. But this was unexpected and she moved forward with caution. The pink powder was obviously something that could be used against Alphas. She’d have to try to procure a sample for further study.

  The woman directed Riker to swing his legs over the side of the table. Once he had, he faced her, but retained the blank stare. Elise looked inside again, watching for what came next, searching for a good time to go in Defender blazing to rescue him.

  “As I told you before, I am high priestess, Anya of the Georgia Woods Druid gathering.”

  Riker said nothing. He seemed to be staring at her mouth or possibly her chin.

  “Let me tell you about our discovery and the long-ago prophecy as it was foretold.”

  The other four robed figures droned, “As it was foretold.”

  Anya crossed her arms, holding them up as if she were a genie from an old television show about to blink her eyes exaggeratedly and make something magic happen.

  Instead of magic making, she just started talking. “We saw a flash like lightning above the tree line, but there were no storms in the area. The cloudless night revealed to us clearly that this was the beginning of the event for which we’ve waited for so long.

  “The light above the woods arced toward our prophecy temple, as it was foretold.”

  The others—all women by the sound of their voices—chanted, “As it was foretold,” every time Anya said the words.

  “We followed the streak, hearing the metallic plunk of the spaceship crash into a nearby clearing, as it was foretold.” And the chorus of four repeated their ominous line.

  “Once we got to the crash site, we found you hurt, bleeding and unconscious, just exactly as it was foretold. We knew you were important. We knew you needed our help. We knew you would become part of our gathering, as it was foretold.”

  The repeated chorus of voices was unnerving.

  “We carried you to safety with the express purpose of completing the long-ago prophecy, as it was foretold.” The others chanted their four-word echo.

  Riker simply stared, expression unchanging, as if ensnared by a spellbound trance of her making. Anya lowered her arms to her sides and said, “You may speak only, thrall, no moving. Tell me, what do you think of our prophecy?”

  Riker’s expression changed quickly. His hard, frowning gaze rose to her eyes. “Not much. I will not participate willingly. I will not be your thrall.”

  Anya laughed. “We’ll see about that, won’t we? And willing or not isn’t part of the foretelling.”

  “I told you, I’m already mated to someone else.” Elise froze as the image of him with his beautiful, popular, rich Alpha wife-to-be punched wickedly into her body with almost physical effect. She inhaled and exhaled to gather her military bearing. She was on a mission to rescue fallen Alphas, not on a manhunt to repair her lonely love life.

  “Silence!” Anya screamed. “I forbid it! You are not allowed to be mated!” On that point, Elise might agree with her. However, she suspected they had much different ideas on who Riker’s future mate should be.

  “I must say, I’m surprised you were mobile when we returned earlier,” Anya remarked. She gripped his chin one-handed and forced him to stare at her again. “Explain to me how you were not still immobile when we returned?”

  Riker shrugged. “How should I know? Why is it important?”

  Anya was only an arm’s length from Riker. Elise tightened her grip on the handle of her Defender, pulling it free from her utility belt. “Because I put a spell on you, of course, so you’d still be here when we returned from the prophecy temple.”

  “There was a spell on me? And there’s a prophecy temple?” Riker asked. Smiling as if she might be teasing him, he added, “Is this another joke?”

  Her attitude darkened. “Our prophecies are sacred. This is a serious matter. I would never joke about it.”

  “I can talk if I want to right now.”

  Her white-blonde eyebrows curved in puzzlement. “No. You only speak because I allow it. I have powers. Instead of questioning me, you should thank me for rescuing you.”

  Riker shook his head, frowned and closed his eyes briefly. Is he in pain? “Listen. I appreciate that you tried to help me and everything
, but I need to get out of here. Along with a mate, I also have obligations and responsibilities to others that I need to attend to.”

  Elise decided it was time to make her presence known. She pushed the door open on luckily soundless hinges, ready to fire the Defender into the room and rescue Riker. He slid his legs off the table and put all his weight on the leg without the splint.

  Anya laughed. “I didn’t say you could move.”

  “And yet I did anyway,” Riker said.

  She lifted her hand and blew more pink dust in his face. He coughed and pushed out a long sigh, making an effort to move his body and seemingly unable to. Riker’s angry look remained in place, but his beautiful lips closed. He was again enthralled in some way by that dust the priestess seemed to have an endless supply of. “And no talking either,” she said imperiously. His lips pressed together.

  Space potatoes! How was Elise supposed to get him out of the cabin if he only responded to Anya’s commands?

  This had gone on long enough. Elise stepped into the cabin, took a two-armed stance and pointed her Defender into the room, ready to fire.

  “Release him,” Elise said in her angriest, most commanding tone.

  Both Riker’s and Anya’s heads turned in her direction and the four robed figures pivoted to face her.

  Anya frowned. “Why should I release him?”

  “Because he’s my mate, and I’ve come for him.”

  Chapter Four

  <^> <^> <^>

  Riker relaxed when he saw the green-eyed redhead step into the cabin with a Defender and proclaim he was her mate. I wish. Obviously, she was with the recovery team sent here from Alienn, Arkansas. The more amazing part of her declaration had to do with the fact that he hadn’t been dreaming before. Elise had been here. Had she also kissed him or was that only part of his fanciful dream?

  Anya put herself in front of him to face his rescuer. His inability to move after she blew more pink dust in his face sent him to the height of fury. At least he didn’t fall unconscious this time.