by Maree Dry
In a bleak and apocalyptic future, Julia Benzoni flees the violence-saturated world of her mafia family to build a peaceful life in a No Name Town, Montana. Now, while civilization disintegrates into anarchy around her and evil men prey on the innocent, she’s pursued by an alien, whose warrior life thrusts her back into the world where might makes right and violence is the order of the day. Torn, she now has to choose between her need to distance herself from war and violence and the alien warrior who holds her heart.
Kudos for Alien Under Cover
In Alien Under Cover by Marie Dry, Julia Benzoni, a minor character in the first book, is hounded by Zurian, also a minor character in the first book. She thinks he is a demon so she puts salt around the windows and doors, thinking that will keep him out. It might work on demons, I don’t know, but it apparently doesn’t work on aliens, as Julia discovers to her dismay. When Julia runs afoul of the reverend, the head of organized crime in her small town of No Name, Montana, Zurian rescues her. Which she appreciates. He also takes her to his home in the mountains. Which she doesn’t appreciate. Now she is safe from the raiders and the reverend, but who is going to save her from the alien? I enjoyed this book very much. It’s got the hot and spicy sex scenes I like in a book, as well as the suspense and fast-paced action that was so apparent in Dry’s first book. Hot sex and fast action, what more could anyone ask? ~ Taylor Jones, Reviewer
Alien Under Cover by Marie Dry is an excellent sequel to Alien Mine. As in the first book, the aliens are taking over Earth through sex. It’s a concept that always makes me chuckle. The main problems the aliens face isn’t the armies defending the planet but the women they choose to take as mates. Instead of the weak, frightened humans they are anticipating, the women turn out to be clever, courageous, and independent. Not exactly what the Zyrgins were expecting. Dry’s characters are charming, well-developed, and realistic--well, as realistic as imaginary aliens can be. I love the way Zurian misinterprets so much of what Julia says by taking her literally. Like when she tells him she feels like a chocolate and he thinks she’s losing her mind. So he takes her to the alien doctor to have her checked for brain injuries. That just tickled the crap out of me. Of course, the sex scenes weren’t half-bad either. All in all, a totally delightful and exciting read. ~ Regan Murphy, Reviewer
Alien Under Cover
Marie Dry
A Black Opal Books Publication
ALIEN UNDER COVER
Copyright © 2015 by Marie Dry
Cover Design by Jackson Cover Design
All cover art copyright © 2015
All Rights Reserved
eBook ISBN: 978-1-626942-32-5
Excerpt
She had to get away from this maniac who wanted to kiss her--but beside him was the only place she felt safe...
Julia cringed back from him, not caring that she pressed against the dirty wall. This could not be happening to her. She frantically tried to think of a way to distract him. His hand still rested under her breasts, his thumb continuing that maddening caress that elicited a response from what felt like every nerve end in her body. “Before, when the revered caught us, why did you step in front of me? It’s not like you to sacrifice yourself for anyone else.”
“You question my honor?” he asked in a clipped growl.
The air chilled, stilled, and, for a moment there was dead silence, as the moans and screams of the other prisoners quieted. His jaw clenched and the muscles bunched there pulsed in an angry rhythm. A foreign rhythm.
She ducked under his arm and darted to the other side of the small room. “Uh, no. Wouldn’t dream of it.”
He didn’t follow, just looked at her with those predator’s eyes. Calculating. “Come here, Julia.”
She held her hands out in a futile effort to hold him off. “Please, don’t.”
“Come here.”
He didn’t point, the inflection of his voice didn’t change. And that scared her more than his shouting would’ve done.
Whatever she did, she had to ensure she didn’t enrage him. She shuddered and looked at the other cages. What he would do to her and the other prisoners in a drug-induced rage would make her father look like a saint.
It took every inch of control she had to overcome her need to run. She took a shaky step toward him and focused on the third button on his shirt. So he wanted a kiss. It was just a kiss. No biggie. She could live through a kiss with a man who’d been willing to stop a bullet for her.
DEDICATION
As always Thank you Cassandra for being the best CP Partner a person can wish for.
Chapter 1
The first time he revealed himself to his breeder she fainted.
Zurian caught her before she hit the floor. Left with a beautiful human woman helpless in his arms, he’d laid her down on her bed, covered her with blankets, and left her alone. It had taken a surprising amount of willpower to let her out of his arms.
He was not a warrior known for his mercy. He’d killed and executed many and, for a long moment, while he stood there staring at her soft human face, he’d been tempted to take her to his dwelling despite the fact that she was too small and delicate for life with a Zyrgin. Not taking her as his breeder so he wouldn’t break such a fragile woman had been an act of mercy from a warrior considered the most pitiless in the empire.
In the end he could not stay away from her and, when he revealed himself to her the second time his faith had been rewarded. She’d tried to shoot him. Julia handled the pistol well and, instead of crying when she couldn’t manage to hit him, she was furious. His Julia knew some words his translator did not have the meaning of.
He returned a third and fourth time, cloaked, curious to know more about her. Since then he’d gone to her many times. Sometimes cloaked, sometimes not. She intrigued him with her strange habits. She spent most of her time on the human communication device they called a TC, which seemed to be her means of earning a living. She liked to paint her tiny claws--nails he reminded himself, humans called them nails--many colors. Women on Zyrgin frequently adorned themselves but since no warrior with honor would look at another warrior’s breeder he’d only been vaguely aware of perfumes and lavish clothes during ceremonies.
He thought about her when he should be concentrating on his warrior duties. Curious to see what she would try next, he returned to her impoverished dwelling. She was clever enough to stay out of grabbing range. Sometimes he played with her, pretending he only moved at human speed. Countering her attacks, he grabbed her and enjoyed the feeling of her skin, of her body held briefly against him while she fought and squirmed. Once, she tried to knee him in the groin. Seemingly convinced she could harm him that way. He’d observed some of the women in the raider camps, the ones not broken, use that tactic with great success on human males.
It had been a week since he’d seen his golden human. At the back of her small house, in the settlement the humans called No Name Town, Zurian stepped forward and stopped, his boot lifted. A thin white powder covered the door entrance. Something gleamed on the windowsill and, as he moved to the side, more of it gleamed at the bottom on each window ledge. He pinched a tiny amount of the white powder and tasted it. Salt, the spice the humans put in everything. It had to be one of her curious tricks to try to keep him out.
He turned the handle of her dilapidated back door, quickly pulled back his hand. His fingers tingled, a very pleasant sensation. Wires wound along the handle of the door, carefully hidden. Clever of his Julia, using electricity in this way. He looked around but saw no one. Then he heard the commotion in the street in front of her house. It was the reverend, a little ways down the road, his followers beating one of his acolytes.
Zurian flashed his fangs in their general direction. He closed the
door and the shouts and thuds dulled. She wasn’t in the kitchen and he stepped deeper into the small room. His breeder should not be living in such an inferior dwelling--with her beauty and especially her hair. And she belonged to a high-ranking warrior.
He’d already built a much better dwelling for her and made sure the other warriors knew she belonged to him. And he’d stocked human food. She probably did not earn much with her work on the TC because she did not eat enough.
He touched the scar on his cheek. She’d called him a slimy lizard during one of the times she tried to shoot him. He’d looked it up in their primitive databases and he did not see a resemblance. Besides, lizards were not slimy.
If he fed her well, protected her, and gave her many pleasure hours in the sleep place maybe she would not hate him, might even accept him willingly. He glanced at the small kitchen sink where unwashed dishes were stacked. A mug sat on the table. Everywhere he looked something cluttered a surface.
Unfortunately, she lacked discipline. Whenever he came, he found some form of untidiness or chaos. It baffled him that every time he thought of her doing the same to his dwelling, he experienced the same kind of rush he did before a battle.
He tightened his hand on the large animal skin, his masking technology concealing it as well. Never in all the years he’d trained to become a warrior did he think he would present an Eduki pelt to a breeder. His breeder.
Zurian glared at the wooden club he also held in his hand. Even at their most basic stage of development, Zyrgins never used such primitive weapons.
Zacar had a strange gleam in his eyes when he’d given Zurian the club. “If your chosen breeder wants you, she will hit you over the head with it.”
“Why should I care if she wants me,” he’d asked, suspicious of the gleam in his leader’s eyes.
A Zyrgin warrior presented the Eduki pelt and the breeder became his to protect. As was proper. How else would they find women among their conquered?
“It is a human custom.” Zacar told him.
He’d told all of them Natalie hit him because she chose him. Azagor had believed him and had argued he should be given the ceremonial club but Zurian did not go through his third change recently. Not believing Zacar for one moment, he still retained possession of the club.
He stroked his finger over the scar on his right cheek where the sword had cut him. Would she realize he was not a born warrior? He knew she thought him frightening and ugly. She became angry and tried to fight him every time he approached her. Even then, he saw the fear beneath her brave actions.
If she didn’t hit him with the club this time, he’d get the information he wanted from the reverend and take his breeder home to the dwelling he’d built her. He glared at the small room, pulling his lips back from his teeth. She would not have to live like this much longer. Soon, she would be living in the dwelling he’d built for her, trapped with him on the mountain during the long winter.
Still cloaked, he stepped inside her living area, careful not to make a sound.
Gold hair like the precious silk spun by Solari worms shining in a beam of sunlight, she looked through her lounge window at the street outside. The way she’d fainted the first time he came to her still puzzled him. Since then she’d acted with courage and knowledge of weapons and equipment not expected in a human female.
The trap she set with the electricity would have been effective on a human male. A laser pistol held easily in her hand, she stood off to the side of the window. Not the actions of a woman who would faint at the sight of a warrior. Blue jeans clung to her curves, the tips of high heels showed beneath the long hems. He could see her breasts rising and falling beneath the white shirt she wore.
He still had not decided if he liked her tiny delicate claws painted red. His leader’s breeder kept hers short, in their natural form. During one of his tussles with Julia, some of her delicate claws had broken and she had blistered his ears with her shrieks. He’d assumed it hurt when they broke so he had been careful to ensure it did not happen again when she fought him--it spared his ears.
From where he stood, he could see her profile--her strange delicate human nose, a chin more rounded than a Zyrgin’s but stubborn for a human. When she moved, sunlight made her skin glow like rare Earth pearls. It worried him that she barely reached his chest. If he lost control he could break her.
She drew back from the window when the noise outside came closer, pressed a fist in front of her mouth, obviously distressed at the commotion in the street. Zurian had noticed the increased violence in town and a warrior now watched over her house whenever Zurian was unable to.
“Please, I swear that’s what I saw.” A human male screamed. The sound burst through the walls of her dwelling as the commotion outside moved closer and she flinched. Zurian tensed, preparing to defend her and then relaxed when it moved away.
Someone walked to the back of Julia’s house, a male judging by the heavier footsteps. The human made no effort to disguise his approach and pounded on the door. Zurian drew his sword and bared his teeth at her when she went to the back door. He’d allowed her to remain free too long if males came to her door.
At least she showed some sense and stayed to the side of it.
Natalie could shoot and had some meager survival skills but Julia had greater skills he found suspicious.
“Who is it?” When she didn’t scream, her voice pleased him, even when she spoke her hideous Earth language. The sound reminded him of the crystal bells on Solaris. In his dwelling, when she had the translator implanted they would only speak Standard Galactic.
“Julia it’s Charles, let me in.”
Zurian narrowed his eyes at the door and extended his claws. A human male dared to approach his breeder, called her by name, encroached on his territory.
She went on her toes to look through the peephole. “Charles?” she exclaimed softly, a note in her voice he did not like. At least she’d made sure of the male’s identity.
Zurian glared at her when she put the pistol in the back of her pants and opened the door with unseemly haste. He fought the urge to growl at her for daring to entertain another male. If she planned to breed for this male, Zurian would kill him. No, he would kill him for approaching her.
With the noise of the reverend’s violence on the street in the background, she looked up into the human’s face. Zurian had seen the same admiration in Natalie’s eyes when she looked at Zacar. His claws lengthened and he battled the urge to slice the human into pieces. To show her this weakling was not worth her admiration.
“Charles, what’s wrong?” She sounded as if she needed more air in her lungs.
The puny human clenched and unclenched his hands. “I think Sarah’s been taken.”
“What, by who?” She stumbled, almost bumping into Zurian. He was tempted to drop the camouflage and teach them both who she belonged to.
“By the reverend.”
“Oh, Charles, no.”
Her face changed color, became the white of snow in winter. He’d seen Julia do that once before. When he visited her the first time and she fainted.
He prepared to catch her before the human male could touch her.
“Taken,” she whispered.
Recently several of their probes had malfunctioned and it took Azagor, their tech warrior, weeks to fix them. Still they had enough probes out to be aware that people had disappeared from town in the last six months.
“I need to know if you saw anything.”
The human male brushed a hand over his head in a pathetic attempt to draw her attention to his yellow hair. Zurian supposed the females considered the human handsome, in a weak kind of way.
“Oh God--not Sarah. I don’t believe it.” She looked about to regurgitate her food and Zurian wanted to step back, but he would not while the human stood so close to her.
The male daring to talk to Zurian’s breeder moved his hand down from his hair to rub his neck. “I’ve been telling her to join me on the mountain but
she wouldn’t leave her mother and that old--her mother refused to leave town.”
“Do you think the rumors could be true? That the reverend is selling people.”
“I’m sure of it,” Charles said.
Julia moved closer to the weak male and touched his chest. “Her mother is one of the reverend’s most devout followers. Why would he take Sarah?”
Zurian held back the growl in his throat and focused on their conversation.
“This town is going to hell. What they are doing to that prick librarian is case in point.” He motioned toward where the sound of thuds, screams, and pleading came from. Zurian hated the imprecise way humans talked. Prick was an action but the male referred to a person.
“Is that who they’re picking on now? I couldn’t see them, only heard the beatings going on.”
“Yeah, he should’ve known the informant job wouldn’t turn out well for him.”
“Maybe he’s not an informant,” Julia said.
“Ever since the reverend arrived, he ran his chubby little legs off to him with information on everyone in this miserable town. He’s probably a joiner as well as an informant. Just never thought it could happen to him.”
“Surely not a joiner,” she said.
Zurian noted the word to investigate later. The human language, simple compared to the old language all Zyrgins spoke, constantly defeated them with its double meanings and strange references.
“Are you sure they have her?” Julia asked.
Zurian would find her friend and give her to Julia. She had a soft core and would not be easy until her friend was safe. He bared his teeth, first he would dispatch the woumber daring to come to her.
“No, but it’s the only explanation. When was the last time you saw her, Julia?” the human male, who still lived only because he did not enter Julia’s dwelling, asked.