Untamed Abduction: Alien Romance Collection

by Ponderosa Publishing

  “I’m sorry, but yes,” Zack confirmed.

  “How can you do that to me?” Madison demanded. “I told you that you needed to be upfront. Why would you not tell me something like that sooner?”

  “I was hoping that you would want to stay,” he said, and Madison could see disappointment starting to play through his eyes. “I was hoping that perhaps you’d see your daughter and you’d know that your place was beside her.”

  “What about the girls on Earth?” I asked him. “What about all the girls who have been through what I’ve been through? Who’s going to stand beside them? Who’s going to show them that their lives are still worth living and they can still go on to be whatever it is that they need to be?”

  “It’s not your job to make the world a better a place,” Zack tried to argue.

  “Isn’t it?” Madison asked him. “I’m pretty sure that’s what you were hoping I’d do when I had our daughter.”

  “Madison, I know you feel like the girls on Earth are your responsibility, but you’re the one who teaches them about not being defined by a single moment. What do you think has been defining your life? What do you think has been pushing you towards helping those girls? Maybe it’s time that you thought about yourself. Maybe it’s time that you can finally put all of that behind you. Why can’t you stay here with us? Your daughter is going to need you, Madison,” Zack said.

  Madison shook her head at him. “You just can’t understand. Our daughter will have you, those girls have no one if they don’t have me,” she said, and she could feel herself growing distraught. Her eyes were burning with tears that were threatening to slip down her cheeks, and her throat felt tight with sadness, as she realized that she’d made her mind up. “I have to go back,” she said. “I have to be there for them.”

  Zack nodded. “When the attack takes place, I need you to go back to where we first met. I will land there and I will bring Poppy home to you. I will only be able to wait an hour. I cannot be caught with you until the battle is over.”

  Madison nodded. She looked down at her baby girl, who was still sleeping softly in her arms. She could feel her tears starting to break from their borders as she reached down and kissed Poppy on her tiny little lips. She tried not to think about the fact that Poppy wouldn’t be able to remember her. She tried not to think about the fact that she was giving away her chance to see her baby growing up. “I need to go now,” she said, and then she held Poppy out to Zack, because she knew that if she spent any more time with Poppy in her arms then she would never be able to let go of her.

  The cold hit her arms as soon as Zack had lifted Poppy away. It seemed strange to think that only a day before Poppy hadn’t even existed and now she was almost the center of Madison’s world. “I love you,” she whispered to Poppy, and then she turned away so that Zack could put her down in her cot and arrange for Madison to be sent back to Earth.

  “Are you sure that you want to leave?” he asked her, when he’d pulled the small cube of silver out of his pocket and put it on the fake coffee table. “If I send you back, then I won’t be able to come back for you until the night of the first attack. You know that, don’t you?” he asked her with a deep look that reached into her soul and demanded that it rethink her choice.

  “I know,” she said with a small nod of her head. “This isn’t a choice I make lightly,” she added, as the cube started to glow. “What if I get hurt on the way down? How will I fix myself?” she asked quickly, when she realized that it was about to happen.

  “Don’t worry, I’ve programmed it all correctly. You should be fine,” Zack said, and then Madison started to feel the same pulling sensation against her skin as she had just before she’d split apart into a million tiny atoms.

  **********

  Ten Years Later

  Madison was sure that it would happen that night. She’d circled the date in her diary the night that she’d gotten back to Earth. She had to be ready. She had to make sure that she was ready to get back to the spot where she had first found Zack when the time came. She knew, though, that she’d done the right thing in coming back.

  The charity she had started had gone global. It had helped countless girls who had been through the same thing that she had been through. She had made a real difference to the world without the need to read minds or see through people’s eyes, or whatever it was that Zack could do.

  The night sky didn’t have a cloud in it. The air was perfectly still. Madison wasn’t sure whether it was just because she was expecting something, but it felt as though something big was on the verge of happening. It was like the air was too still and the sky was too clear.

  She walked along the quiet path in the park and then sat down on one of the benches. A tall willow hung over the bench and threw a long and looming shadow out into the darkened field of grass. Madison watched it as it stayed perfectly still. She felt almost as though her breathing was disturbing the perfect calm of the world around her, and then she saw the first flash of light in the sky.

  She stood up quickly and ran over to the woods where she had found Zack. She could see the sky starting to light up again and again, as more of Zack’s people fell from the sky above her. She stopped when she reached the small crater that was still visible on the ground. “Zack?” she called out into the darkness. “Zack, are you here?” she called again, when no one answered her.

  She heard the sound of feet shuffling behind her and she turned. She looked at the woman who was standing in front of her. She was beautiful. Her skin was tanned, her stomach flat, and her eyes reminded Madison of wild ocean waves. “Are you Madison?” the girl asked, and Madison could hear her own voice within the girl who was speaking.

  “Poppy?” Madison asked. The girl nodded slowly. “You’re…you are perfect,” Madison stammered and she rushed over to her daughter and pulled her into a tight embrace. “I can’t believe how beautiful you are,” Madison gushed. All the feelings of love that had been with her during the birth came flooding back, as though it was only the day before that it had happened. “Where is your father? Where is Zack?” Madison asked when she’d let go of Poppy and taken a step back, so that her daughter could have some space.

  “The government found out about his plan. They have executed his family and every person associated with the plan. My father and I managed to escape. He took me into a deep part of space that his people would never think about searching. He sent me back for you.”

  Madison tried to digest everything her daughter was telling her. “The plan has failed then?” she asked. Poppy nodded. “Your father is alive, though?” she asked Poppy just to be sure.

  “He’s alive and he wants you to come back with me. The war is over. His people have won and it’s only just the start of that. This world is going to get torn apart. My father knows all about the bombs and missiles that humans have created. If you stay here then you will die.”

  Madison didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t believe that she’d been waiting ten years only to find that the plan hadn’t worked. She couldn’t believe that she had given up her chance to see her daughter grow into a woman, just to help girls who wouldn’t live beyond their next year. She’d given up everything to change the world, and now the world was being taken from her.

  “What about everybody else?” she asked, because she couldn’t help herself. “Will anybody else be saved?”

  Poppy looked her mother firmly and shook her head. “I’m sorry. My father said you might ask about them. We don’t have the resources to take anybody else on board with us. My father gave up his life so that you might have yours. Although that plan might have failed, surely you still owe him the same gesture?” Poppy reasoned with her mom. “If you want to save somebody, then save him.”

  Madison felt taken aback by how thoughtful her daughter was. “How long do I have before we need to go?” she asked.

  Poppy looked at her in surprise. “You are going to come with me?” she asked.

  “Is that rea
lly so surprising?” Madison questioned, as she looked up at the sky, which was still on fire with falling bodies.

  “My father seemed to think that perhaps I’d have to force you,” Poppy said with a shrug.

  “Poppy,” Madison said, and then she hesitated. She’d spent countless hours during the ten years that had passed thinking about what she would say to Poppy when she got the chance. She felt that she owed her daughter an explanation. She owed Poppy a reason for not being there as a mother.

  “You don’t have to say anything,” Poppy said, and her eyes seemed to a warm a little as they looked over at Madison. “I know why you came back down here, and if I were you I would have done the same thing,” she reassured her mother.

  “You have no idea what that means to me,” Madison said, and she felt almost to the point of tears over how understanding Poppy was being.

  “You have no idea what it means to me to finally find out that you did love me,” Poppy said to her gently. “Ten years is a long wait to meet you mom,” she said, and Madison realized that Poppy had just called her “mom” for the first time.

  “Should we be going?” Madison asked when the ground started to shake under their feet and the sky grew brighter around them.

  “I think that might be best,” Poppy said, as she observed what was going on around them. “My father is looking forward to seeing you, you know. He says that he’s been watching over you, and you haven’t aged a day,” Poppy smirked as she pulled out the small silver cube that Madison could remember only too well.

  “Was he hurt that I left him?” Madison asked, as the blue light from the box started to grow brighter.

  Poppy nodded. “I don’t think he’ll mind too much when he sees how much love you still have for him, though,” she said quickly. Madison made a mental note to tell Poppy to keep out her mind, but she realized the message had already been sent loud and clear when Poppy laughed. “Don’t forget to hold your breath, Mom,” Poppy said, and then the familiar tugging feeling returned. Madison held her breath and waited to be brought back to the only man who had ever made her feel safe.

  *****

  THE END

  An Alien Warrior’s Fate

  Melisa was 24 years old and already divorced. She had no idea how it had happened. When her counselors in college had asked her about what she’d envisioned for her life, a year in a courtroom fighting over a small condo on Florida’s prime beach front hadn’t been what she’d had in mind. It had made her tired. It had made her tired in a way that shouldn’t be possible in a person’s twenties. Her shoulders slumped, her hair had lost its shine and her eyes had been permanently underlined with purplish puddles.

  It wasn’t just her exterior that the divorce had affected. She had stopped feeling like her old self so long ago that she had started to refer that part of her as a different person. It was something that she caught herself doing far too often. When her friends talked about times from their shared past, she wouldn’t remember it as though she had been there; she saw her memories from the eyes of an outsider, an onlooker, a stranger.

  He was gone though. The man she had grown up with was gone. He’d already moved on. He’d moved on before they were even over. It was hard for her to get her head around. She was still waking up each morning and expecting to feel him next to her. She was making pasta for two when she cooked. He’d been gone for over six months, but she was still waiting for him, or she was until she signed the papers and her heart knew that it was all over.

  It was after signing the papers that she headed to a small dive bar on her way home. It hadn’t been her intention to end the day getting wasted. She’d woken up that morning with a solid resolve to take on the day like the adult she was being forced to be. That resolve had been slowly chipped at all day though. By the time she walked into the dirty bar and the smell of stale beer and vomit burned against her nose it was too late. Her resolve was gone and all she wanted to do was forget.

  She stopped at the scratched-up bar and waited for the bruised-up bartender to come over. “What will it be?” he asked when he noticed her quietly standing there.

  “Whiskey, hold the ice,” she told him.

  It didn’t take him long to fill her glass and take her money away. She turned with the glass in her hand and scanned the room for a place to sit. There weren’t many people in the room, but they had somehow managed to spread themselves out so that only the table next to the bathroom doors was empty.

  Melisa didn’t have to even consider it before she reassessed the room to see whether there was anyone who looked okay to sit with. Most of the punters looked pretty rough. There were enough biker beards and scars to film a gang shoot-out scene. Her eyes stopped when she found a reasonably normal-looking guy next to the fruit machine[S3].

  He was leaning over the table, his hands cupping the pint glass between them. A shadow was cast across half his face from his dark blond hair, which hung low over his eyes. She walked over and pulled out the seat opposite him before she said anything. “Is this seat free?” she asked when he looked up and around at the bar.

  He nodded. Melisa could feel his intense look on her skin as she sat down in the seat. “Rough day?” he asked her when she lifted the glass to her lips.

  She glanced to him in surprise. She hadn’t been expecting conversation when she’d sat down. She placed the glass back onto the table and nodded slowly. “Sure, you could say that.”

  “Want to talk about it?” he asked. There wasn’t any real curiosity in his eyes. He was just making small talk with the girl who’d sat down beside him. He took a drink from her glass and waited to see whether she was the kind of girl who’d spill her life story to a stranger.

  “Things just aren’t how they should be,” she told him.

  He was impressed. She had managed to convey her broken ideas about life without talking off his ear to do it. “How do you think life should be?” His eyebrows pulled together, creating a sharp edge to his face.

  She shrugged. She didn’t really know how life was supposed to be, she just knew that her life wasn’t it. “Different,” she told him finally.

  He put his glass back down on the table. The curiosity that had been missing from his eyes during his initial round of questions had arrived in full force. “What should be different?”

  “Everything.”

  “You’re not one for words are you?” he asked with a content, unintended smile creeping over his lips.

  Melisa took another drink from her glass and emptied it. If the guy sitting across from her had met her a few years ago, he wouldn’t have said that. She used to be the life of the party. She used to be the girl you couldn’t shut up. Things had changed, though. She had been arguing with her ex for too long and all words had lost their meaning. “I guess not.” She put the glass back down on the table.

  “Another one?” he asked her, as he took the empty glass from the table and lifted it in the air so that the bartender would be able to see that the drink was finished. The bartender got the message, because a few minutes later he brought over a fresh whiskey and pint.

  “Do you know that guy?” Melisa asked him, because she doubted that the bartender offered table service to all of the customers who came in.

  “Not really, I’ve just spent a lot of money in here,” the guy explained. “I’m Dominic, by the way,” he added, as he held out his glass so that Melisa could bump hers against it.

  ********

  Melisa stumbled through the front door of the condo she could now call her own. “What do you think?” She held her arms out as she turned to Dominic, who was following her in. “It’s all mine now,” she grinned. She walked over to him and wrapped her arms around his waist. She could feel her body aching to get closer to him as she drunkenly stumbled over her own feet. “I’m really glad I sat down next to you,” she told him without her embarrassment filter working.

  “I’m glad you did too.” Dominic put his hands on her hips to steady her sway. “My night has
turned out very differently than I thought it might.”

  Melisa nodded. Even in her drunken stupor, she could understand the sentiment behind what he’d said. She’d been planning a night on her own. She’d been planning on crying herself to sleep in the condo, which she had fought so hard to keep, even though all it held were memories she wanted to run away from. She leaned forward, with his hands as her balance, and kissed him.

  The liquor in her system was fueling her. She could feel the spark between them starting to burn the whiskey in her stomach and she knew that only Dominic would be able to put that fire out. “Do you want to see the rest of the condo?” she asked him without taking her lips away from his. She stepped back from his embrace and wrapped her hand around his, so that she could lead him through the house.

  “Where are we going first?” he asked, as she pulled him towards the stairs.

  “The bedroom,” she grinned.

  Neither of them said anything else. She pulled at his hand, and he hurried forward so that they could get to their destination. She stopped outside a light wood door and leaned up onto the tips of her toes so that she could kiss him again before she opened the door.

  “What do you think?” She flicked on the light switch, revealing the room, which had been previously hidden in the dark. Melisa loved her bedroom. It wasn’t the solid oak bed that she’d had specially made or the matching units. It wasn’t the hand-painted sugar skull picture that her friend had made for her or her thousand thread-count sheets. It was the windows. It was the fact that the whole back wall of the room was a window that looked out over the ocean.

  “I think any room is beautiful when you’re in it,” Dominic said casually.