COWBOY ROMANCE: Justin (Western Contemporary Alpha Male Bride Romance) (The Steele Brothers Book 1)

by Amanda Boone

  She turned her gaze in the direction of the noise as she allowed herself to relax a little, her back pressing against the wall. A smile played on her lips. The first time she had laid eyes on that man, this would have been considered beyond her wildest fantasies. But it had actually happened. She had actually had sex with him.

  A small voice in the back of her head wondered if this was safe. It questioned if she could trust him not to take advantage of her again and again, until she was no longer making choices for herself.

  An even bigger voice wondered what he could have possibly wanted with her blood.

  Before she had time to ponder anything more, he emerged with a tray in his hand dotted with food. “I assumed you would want nutrients.”

  Jenna grimaced. His word choice always caught her off guard. When he set the tray down, she went first for the glass of water, chugging it down.

  The next thing she noticed was the heap of kale and the slab of what looked like salted beef next to it. She ripped a piece off of it, but couldn’t resist the urge to smell it, in search any immediately detectable poison, then put it in her mouth.

  He winced at this.

  She raised an eyebrow. “You can’t do that. I don’t even know your name.”

  He swiped his own piece of kale from the plate and jabbed it into his mouth, chewing it like it was the best thing he had ever eaten. “Lord Darys.” He said.

  Jenna raised an eyebrow. It was a strange name and an even stranger title. “Are you European?” she asked as she tried a piece of the meat.

  Darys cocked his head to the side. “Do I look European?”

  Jenna froze. There was something confrontational in his question, like he already knew what was deep inside of her head and needed only to extract it. “I don’t know,” She said.

  He chuckled, the alluring, dark sound filling the cabin. “Yes you do.”

  Jenna shook her head. The explanation was so far out there, she felt foolish for even thinking it.

  He placed a hand on hers, drawing her attention back to him. “You know what I am. You’ve felt it your entire life.”

  Jenna’s heart pounded in her ears. A nervous sweat coated her palms. She bit her lip as she gazed at him, her strong, concentrated stare trained right on his eyes. He wasn’t wrong. “Tell me what you are.”

  A knowing smile stretched across his face. “Now, you are asking the right questions.”

  Jenna stuffed another piece of meat into her mouth. The stuff was starting to grow on her. “So answer then.”

  Darys folded his hands in front of him. “I am extra-terrestrial. I come from a planet called Xerxes in a different galaxy… and someone very close to you in family did too.”

  Jenna lowered her gaze. “Mother.” It was easy to see that he was right. It was easy to flock to the explanation that wrote her off as different, deviant, because she had felt it her whole life.

  Darys shrugged. “I cannot speak to that effect. But after testing you blood and your DNA, it is obvious that you are more Xei than you are human.”

  Jenna’s eyes flashed wide. “How did you run a DNA test that fast?”

  “Superior technology.”

  Jenna frowned. She couldn’t deny that. “Why are you here?”

  “My planet… your planet is in peril. A meteor hit it almost seven earth years ago. It rendered it completely lifeless.”

  Jenna shook her head. This was all too crazy for her to wrap her head around. “What do you mean? Are you going to colonize us?” she couldn’t believe she had just had sex with a power-hungry over lord.

  Darys held up his hand in a defensive gesture. “It isn’t just about the resources or power. My race has been reduced to the male soldiers who happened to have been protected in military barracks when Impact hit.”

  “There are no women?”

  Darys’s lips folded into a crooked smile. “You are the first female Xei I have seen in almost seven years.”

  “So how are you…?”

  “Going to survive?”

  Jenna nodded. One moment, she was making cappuccinos and the next she was being informed that an alien race, her alien race, had nearly been wiped out and was coming to Earth for refuge.

  “That’s why this isn’t just a takeover mission. We are here to propagate our race, to survive.”

  Jenna glowered at him. “So what are you gonna do? Just pluck our lavender eyes out one by one?”

  Darys shook his head. “I don’t know who you think I am, but I do not intend to force anyone to mate.”

  “But you intend to force us to let you in…”

  Darys set his jaw, his hand clutching into a fist as he exclaimed, “I am protecting my kind!” His lips clamped shut as he immediately turned away, as if surprised by his own words.

  Jenna jumped, but recovered from this quickly. “So you are the leader?” she was afraid to argue with him. She had not forgotten that she was in a sealed pod and had no idea how to get out of.

  He nodded. “It is my responsibility to see to it that they survive.”

  Jenna sighed. “Whoa.”

  He looked at her again. “I have chosen you as the beacon of hope for my nation. You are an extraordinary being. You are proof that there is a future for us. Nothing else mattered.”

  Jenna could not deny that any of the words he spoke were real. He had lathered her whole confusing existence with purpose and the intoxicating satisfaction she felt as a result of that was almost impossible to deny.

  He stood up. “I must take you to my space ship and show you to the others. It is only fair that you acquaint yourself with who you truly are.”

  Chapter Six

  Jenna was strapped into the small control of that same pod. In the hour after their meal, Darys had gone through great pains to make sure everything was tied down before he took off. In the beginning, it wasn’t very much different than being in a plane, but as soon as her ears began to pop and Darys drove his joystick up to an even higher incline, Jenna couldn’t stop herself from clutching onto the sides of her seat for dear life.

  They were racing through the sky. Then it seemed as if the sky were below them. Not like when you get on an airplane and the pilot cruises over the cloud cover. No. As Jenna looked out of the front window, she failed to find anything blue or white around her. Below her, she could see the earth’s atmosphere.

  Darys pursed his lips as he held on to three different controls. Catching the hint, Jenna followed suit, clutching on to the handles on either side of her seat. The entire craft jumped, dipping as if it had finally freed itself from a string.

  Jenna’s jaw dropped as a surprised yelp leapt from between her lips.

  “Jenna.” Darys clasped his hand in hers, chancing on quick glance over at her.

  Jenna allowed herself to be calmed by him.

  “Everything is okay. Xei’s do this all the time.”

  It wasn’t want Darys said. It was the way he said it, as if he meant to assert: “Don’t worry. This is a part of your culture. One day, you won’t be afraid.”

  As he said this, Jenna caught sight of something right behind her. It was a space ship that spanned her entire range of vision. Lights from the windows dotted its dark mass as its sharp compartments jutted out into the space around it. Her heart swelled in her chest at the sight of it. “This is beautiful,” She whispered.

  Darys nodded. “It is.” With that, he took his hand off of hers and directed his space craft towards the larger ship. The mass grew as they approached it until it seemed to engulf everything around them. Once he reached what looked like an industrial garage door, he stopped it, hovering right in front of it as it slowly opened. There were three Xeis with space suits on waiting for him as he entered.

  As Darys cut the engine on the craft, Jenna noticed an oxygen gauge on the side of the wall and watched as it slowly rose to viable levels. Darys nodded, pressing a button on the side of his door.

  Jenna’s eyes went wide. Suddenly, she realized that she was ab
out to enter a space craft in the middle of space with no other human on it. But then she remembered she had more in common with them than otherwise. Even though she had no idea what to expect, she wouldn’t let herself cower from this.

  So, she followed Darys out of the control room, down the short hall inside of his craft and out into the garage. The Xeis were only just taking their helmets off by the time Darys reached them.

  They all nodded to him. “My lord.”

  “My lord.”

  “My lord.”

  Jenna gulped. Something about his power just made him that much more attractive.

  “Pilot,” Darys said, nodding towards one of the Xeis. He was a little shorter than Darys, but shared his same severe stare.

  “I see you have already succeeded.” Pilot looked past him, his eyes settling on Jenna.

  He scanned her with the kind of scrutiny she hadn’t experienced since her first day of grade school. He then stepped aside to let the both of them through. Once they were inside of the ship, Jenna found herself overloaded with things to look at.

  Pilot first led them through a long, wide hallway, which bled into what looked like a gymnasium. Xei men were scattered all around it, slamming their fists into punching bags, shooting what looked like high tech arrows into targets. It all struck Jenna as unnecessarily militarized.

  The men all stopped to look at her as they passed through. Darys, seemed to sense her discomfort, for he reached for her hand as he continued to talk with Pilot.

  “I need to call a meeting, but first I would like to get Jenna settled in my chambers.”

  Pilot raised an eyebrow at him. “How long are you planning to hold her?”

  Jenna winced.

  “I am not holding her. I only planned to keep her there until I had finished meeting with you.”

  Pilot nodded, but his confused look did not go away.

  Darys stopped walking, turning the full force of his glare on him. “It is not for you to question my actions,” He snapped.

  Jenna didn’t move, except to take a breath.

  Pilot nodded and they kept walking.

  Soon enough, they had reached a barrier marked with an intricate-looking seal. The double doors had been bolted shut. One of the other Xeis that had been walking with them stepped forward with a set of keys. He unlocked the bolts, then moved away.

  Pilot took it upon himself to open the door, then moved to the side to let them in. Jenna was affixed with the sudden change in atmosphere. Warm lighting bathed the short hallway that ended in what looked like a door made of black wood.

  Darys stepped in front of her, pulling the door open to reveal a spacious bedroom. His bed towered at least four feet off of the ground, a black, ornate step stool perched right beside it. Beyond that, there was a wooden desk, covered in papers and diagrams, an armoire, a dresser, and an archway into what looked like some kind of washroom.

  But as soon as the door shut behind Jenna, there was a question she had to get off of her chest. “What’s going on?” She asked. “It looks like you guys are preparing for some kind of… invasion.”

  His blank stare confirmed her worst fears.

  “Are you?”

  Of course he was. He was a War Lord from a different planet with clearly superior technology and a thirst for survival.

  “You are in no place to judge my decision.”

  Jenna’s eyes stung as a lump began to form itself in her throat. She suddenly detested herself for having step foot onto his ship, for having sex with a creature that had a mind to destroy her home. “How could you?”

  “I have a duty to protect Xei.”

  Jenna clenched her jaw. For everything she had in common with him, for the connection she knew she shared with him, she suddenly found herself at odds with him. “I can’t condone this.”

  Darys raised an eyebrow at her, but instead of actually indulging her, he turned to leave.

  She raced towards him, grabbing his arm. “You can’t just come to earth and assume control of everything!” A kind of desperation had seeped into her veins.

  “I don’t have much of a choice.”

  “You could hide,” she said.

  Darys glared at her, the force of his stare freezing her where she stood. “My people do not deserve hiding and persecution after all that they have been through. Humans will not accept us given the choice. They are creatures driven by fear of the unknown and a compulsion to keep things as they are.”

  Jenna could not deny the truth in his words. But still, she had to try, “But if you would just—”

  “Jenna!”

  She clamped her jaw shut.

  “I do not have time to argue with you about things that are over your head.”

  He made her feel like a child… like someone… something less than him.

  Then he left.

  Chapter Seven

  Jenna was racing through the space craft. “Darys!” she screeched. She raced through the halls. Xerxes natives wandered around her, their harsh stares questioning her. Yet they all gave her a wide berth as if, on some strange level, they were frightened by her.

  It was odd how the creatures she had just learned that she belonged to strayed away from her, as if she was somehow damaged.

  “Darys!” she yelled. She knew she was acting crazy but she didn’t know where to look for him and her time was numbered. Every minute that went by was another minute of the planning that would solidify the invasion of her home.

  “Darys!”

  Someone pulled an alarm button. Red light spilled into the hall. Xeis all cleared away, the sound of the siren bouncing off the walls. But Jenna kept running.

  “Jenna!”

  She skidded to a stop at the sound of Darys’s voice. She turned to find the War Lord standing in the center of the corridor, a scowl on his face. “I can’t let you do this!” she exclaimed.

  “I don’t understand why you are so concerned. You are one of us.” He said as he approached her.

  Jenna stepped away from him. “I’m not one of you. I don’t just take things because I can. And I don’t kidnap people.” Jenna stood her ground. She felt a need to overcompensate for how much she had conceded in such a short time.

  “You cannot reduce my decisions to brutish actions. I am acting for the good of those who trust me with their lives.”

  Jenna saw it then. She saw everything that had made her feel so at odds for her entire life. Sure she was different, an anomaly. But that “mistake” in her DNA, that hue of her eyes, had put her on this ship and right then it was easy to figure out who and what she was. “Well so am I. I’m not saying I don’t care what happens to you. I obviously like you and I know this is who I am. But I will not stand by and let you just take what has been ours for thousands of years.”

  “I see no other option!” Darys seemed to be trying to convince himself more than her.

  Jenna closed the distance between the two of them. She saw a Xei at a crossroads. She watched him linger on the cusp of total destruction and assured survival and something else—something harder but far superior. “So keep looking.”

  He set his jaw somehow determined to be right.

  “I know it’s not easy. I know who we are. Trust me. But you can help us. There’s a handful of you compared to millions of us…”

  “Us?” Darys sneered.

  Jenna gulped, grabbing his hand. “Us. Believe it or not, I’m human too. And if you were to mate with me or with anyone else remotely like me, or if anyone were to mate with anyone, you cannot deny that your children would be human to some degree. We are all human. Human is your future. You need us to survive. So you have to help us if you expect this to work.”

  Darys softened. “You are not in the position to make any promises for them.”

  Jenna scoffed, glancing around her. “But I’m the only one here.” She sighed. “You don’t know a thing about us. About what we’re capable of, and yet you were prepared to launch an attack. Do you have any idea w
hat kind of backlash you would face? Or did you just assume that because you found us before we could find you, that you’re superior?”

  Darys’s eyes seemed lost to Jenna as he gazed into the distance, seeming to be pondering what she was saying.

  “My Lord!”

  They both turned to find pilot staring at them. “The launch codes.”

  Jenna’s heart stopped. She reached for Darys, holding his face in both of her hands. “Don’t fucking do it.”

  Darys pried his face out of her grip.

  Jenna stepped back, feeling completely defeated.

  “Disarm the codes.”

  Pilot’s eyes went wide. “But—”

  “Disarm them!” Darys yelled.

  Pilot turned and sauntered off.

  Jenna could cry from relief. “Oh Darys.” She wrapped her arms around him, but he didn’t hug her back.

  “This took me seven earth-months to plan. I have nothing to offer the Xei.”

  Jenna was softened by the glaze over his eyes. “You can offer them a future devoid of war and sacrifice.”

  ***

  Darys stared back at the human-Xei hybrid he had plucked from earth by chance. Somehow, she had managed to help him find strength in an intuition he had always had.

  THE END

  Saved by the Alien Lord

  Kahara Lords

  Book 3

  (Can be read as a standalone book)

  By: Lindsay Blanc

  Saved by the Alien Lord

  Chapter One

  Coel pressed his body forward, his large hands squeezing the heavy wheel. His bushy brows furrowed as he peered at the monitor in front of him. His tiny space craft inched across the screen but he could see it in the distance.

  The air grew hot around him, a halo of burning oxygen. He pursed his lips, flexing one arm to release another. His left hand went right for the joy stick; his fingers wrapped around it. A grunt slid out of his throat as he felt the pressure of a thousand suns pushing down on him.