“Is it true you found Tina?” Melanie asked.
Natalie nodded and sat down. “We got her back. She’s in her quarters right now.”
“Is she all right?” Amber asked.
“She’s just fine,” Natalie replied.
“That’s great!” Melanie exclaimed.
Natalie smiled. “I have something to tell you both, something even better than rescuing Tina.”
Their eyes widened. “What?”
Natalie swept her friends with her eyes. “We’re going home.”
The End
Book 3
Living with Aliens
By: Ruth Anne Scott
Chapter 1
Natalie scanned the dense foliage and shivered. “Oh, my God!”
Kyan glanced at her. “What’s the matter? Don’t you like it?”
Natalie shifted from one foot to the other. “I like it. I just wasn’t expecting it to be so.....so wild.”
Natalie and her friends stood in a line on a flat expanse of grass where Star Destroyer Mixtidelin dropped them off on Kyan’s home planet of Eblian. An enormous lake stretched from one end of the horizon to the other behind them. It reflected the crystal clear sunlight in shimmering waves that obscured the mirror reflection of the mountains beyond.
In front of them, covering the rest of the visible planet from one corner of the lake to the other, stood impenetrable forests. Not a ray of bright sun lit that solid mass of vegetation. Were Natalie and her friends really going to live in that? What had they gotten themselves into?
“It’s not as bad as I thought it would be,” Melanie remarked. “Actually, I think it’s breathtakingly beautiful.”
Natalie’s heart went out to her friend. She took her eyes off the forest and smiled at Melanie instead. “I think it’s beautiful, too. Let’s figure out where we’re going to spend the night.”
“That’s easy,” Kyan replied. “We’ll spend it with the Eblians. They’re curious to know all about us. I’m sure no one on this planet has seen an Earthling before.”
“How do you know they’re curious?” Natalie asked. “They don’t even know we’re here.”
“Of course they do.” Kyan waved toward the forest. “They’re watching us right now.”
Natalie’s head whipped around. “Where?”
Kyan pointed toward the trees. “Right there. Can’t you see them? They’ve been watching us ever since we landed. They’re probably wondering why we don’t make ourselves at home.”
Natalie studied the forest, but she couldn’t make out anything more than a blank wall of green. Where were the faces peering out at them? If they looked anything like Kyan, with his bright green skin, they would blend right in. She could stare all day and never see them until they made themselves known to her.
How could she make her home among these people? Would she ever feel at home here? She would always be an outsider, with her white skin. Would her friends have any chance of settling here? They followed Natalie here in the hope of building new lives for themselves. Would they all live to regret their decision?
Melanie spoke up again. “How can we make ourselves at home? We’re strangers. Maybe they think we’re hostile.”
“I’m here,” Kyan replied. “They know I wouldn’t come here with anybody hostile. They’re waiting for me to take you to my home village and introduce you to my parents.”
Natalie’s head shot up again, but when she saw his face, she couldn’t help but smile. She came here to build a future with the love of her life. She should know Kyan would never let her down. She would stay close to him, and everything would work out just fine. “Let’s go. I can’t wait to meet them.”
He squeezed her hand. “Come on.”
“Not so fast.” Arno’s voice boomed from the end of the line. “There’s one thing we haven’t worked out yet.”
Natalie and Kyan turned toward him, but unlike the rest of the group, Arno wasn’t looking at the forest. He gazed toward the edge of the lake, where a pile of their luggage sat heaped on the gravel beach. A lone figure sat on one of the steel boxes and stared at the sunlight shimmering on the waves.
Natalie sighed. “What are we going to do about Tina? We can’t just leave her here while the rest of us troop off to the village.”
Melanie rolled her eyes and turned away. “Leave her here. I’m sick of making special allowances for her. She hasn’t been through anything worse than the rest of us. She has no excuse for sitting around moping and staring into the distance when the rest of us are trying to do something productive with our lives. If she’s too traumatized to come with us to the village, then she can stay here and rot for all I care.”
Natalie cringed. “Don’t talk like that, Melanie. Have a little compassion.”
Amber glanced at Tina from her place between Arno and Natalie. “I’ll stay with her. The rest of you can go off to the village and meet Kyan’s people. I’ll keep an eye on Tina.”
Natalie’s shoulders relaxed. “Thanks, Amber. I really appreciate it.”
Amber studied the still figure by the water. “I understand why she’s doing this. I feel the same way myself, even if I don’t act the same way. I went through the same hardship, and that’s why I can sympathize with what she’s going through. She’s holding the same pain on the outside the rest of us feel on the inside. I’m grateful to her for that.”
Natalie squeezed Amber’s arm. “What will you do out here, all alone with her?”
Amber squinted up at the sky. “The sun will go down soon, and if I’m any judge of weather, it’s going to get cold tonight.”
“Yes, it is,” Kyan added. “That’s why we should all be in the village before sundown.”
Amber shook her head. “We won’t get Tina to the village today, or anytime soon. I’ll build a shelter for us here.”
She grabbed one of the larger boxes from the pile and popped the latches. The lid fell off to reveal an array of heavy hand tools. “I’ll cut some logs from the forest and build a shelter.”
Natalie’s eyes widened. “Can you really do that?”
Amber shot her a grin. “I used to work with my dad in the logging camps up in Saskatchewan. You didn’t know that, did you?”
Natalie shook her head in mute wonder.
Amber dug through the box and pulled out an axe. She hefted it in her hand. “I know what you’re thinking. You thought since I got scared when the Toom first abducted us that I would be a liability when we landed here. But there’s no danger here. I know what to do for Tina, and you can trust me to do it.”
“I do trust you, Amber,” Natalie replied. “I’m just surprised. That’s all.”
Amber scraped her thumb over the sharp edge of the axe and nodded. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the regeneration bed took my fear away. I noticed that on the Magellan planet. No matter what happened, no matter what the Toom did to me, I was never scared. I wondered if that confidence would wear off with the other effects of the regeneration bed, but I guess it hasn’t.”
Natalie couldn’t suppress her laughter any longer. “Thank you, Amber. Thank you for taking care of Tina. All of us owe you a huge thanks.”
Arno stepped forward. “I’m staying, too. If you think you’re going to haul timber from the forest to build a shelter before nightfall, you’ll need some muscle to do it. I don’t feel comfortable leaving Tina, either. We’ll work together to build a camp here. It might turn out to be temporary, but we don’t know. We might be here longer than we think.”
Amber smiled at him. “Thanks, Arno. I need all the help I can get.”
Natalie turned back to Kyan. “Good. We’re ready to go then.”
Kyan waved toward the forest, and he and Natalie and Melanie set off toward the treeline. Halfway across the grass, Natalie cast a glance back toward the lake. Arno bent over the tool box and lifted out a heavy blasting maul. Then he and Amber started toward the forest together.
Natalie fell in at Kyan’s side, and the canopy closed
over their heads. The hoots and screams of animals echoed through the forest, and Natalie peered up into the shadows. Indistinct shapes fluttered overhead, and they all seemed to move in the same direction along with her and her friends. Were the Eblians following them? Were they waiting to pounce once the little group got out of sight of the lake?
But why would they do that? Kyan was returning home, clothed in glory, after years fighting the Toom with the Galactic Police Force. He brought with him four females to the devastated Eblian population. Why would the native inhabitants attack them now?
Kyan always told her the Eblians were a peaceful, retiring species. So why did she hesitate to meet them in their own territory? Wasn’t she here to make this planet her home? She loved Kyan more than anything, and she wanted nothing more than to love his people, too.
Kyan took her hand, and his warm skin reassured her. He’d never let anything bad happen to her, not even when they traveled into dangerous situations together. He wouldn’t let anything happen to her here.
He led her farther into the heart of the forest, where skyscraper-sized trees blocked out the light. Water dripped from the treetops onto their heads, and hidden creatures screeched more terribly than ever. After a long walk in darkness, Kyan stopped and peered upwards. He nodded. “This is the spot.”
Natalie glanced around. “What is?”
He let go of her hand. “This is where we go up.”
Natalie opened her mouth, but no sound came out. Melanie hovered at her side in silent trepidation. Nothing but enormous trees surrounded them on all sides.
All at once, Kyan set off running at top speed through the dense underbrush. He broke branches and crashed through piles of debris underfoot. Then, with a great burst of speed, he leapt into the air and extended his hand as far above his head as he could reach. He caught hold of a creeping vine dangling from the nearest tree—and disappeared.
Natalie stared up into empty space where he used to be. High above her, a black shape crouched on a branch and gazed down at her. Was it Kyan? At that distance, she couldn’t be sure. His skin would blend into the mottled darkness perfectly, and not enough light eeked through the canopy to show her his shape or his face.
Then, out of nowhere, Kyan zinged down out of the air and hit the ground at her side. He held the creeper in one hand, and in a fraction of a second, he wrapped his other arm around her waist. Then, just as fast, the creeper recoiled and pulled him up into the canopy with Natalie clutched tight against his chest. They sailed up into the treetops and left the ground far below them.
Chapter 2
Kyan swung through the treetops on his springy creepers. They expanded with his weight and then recoiled to whip him through the air. Natalie kept her arms wound around his neck and her legs locked around his waist to keep from falling. She couldn’t see the ground below. Hitting the ground from this height would kill her for certain.
The wind whipped her cheeks, and leaves and branches tore past her eyes. She buried her face in Kyan’s neck and let the forest fly away behind her. Where he took her, she couldn’t guess.
On and on they flew. Would they ever get there? Just as Natalie made up her mind to open her eyes and look around, Kyan took one last leap into the air and came to a stop. Natalie pried her eyes off his neck and blinked.
They stood on a platform high in the canopy—so high sunlight winked through the leaves above them. Natalie turned her face up to the light with a sigh of relief, but before she could relax, her eye caught a green shape move against the tree trunk opposite her. A tiny Eblian stared out at her with enormous green eyes.
“I’ll go get Melanie,” Kyan told her. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”
Natalie turned to speak to him, but he was gone in a flash. His creeper whipped through the air, the leaves rustled, and then silence enveloped the forest again. Where were the screeching creatures she heard earlier? Not a voice quivered in that trackless forest.
The tiny Eblian stepped out onto the platform and stood right in front of her. It gazed up into her face. Natalie tried to smile at it. “Hello.”
The creature leapt backwards and caught its breath. Then it took a halting step toward her again. Natalie took a good look at it. Its skin glowed leaf-green, just like Kyan’s, but it wouldn’t stand as high as his waist. From the size of its head and eyes were too large for its body. It must be a child.
It extended its finger and touched the white skin of her arm. Then the child pulled its hand back with a squeak.
Natalie tried again. “Hello. What’s your name?”
The child stared up at her with its mouth open. “Are you......are you real?”
Natalie couldn’t stop herself from smiling. Maybe this wasn’t going to be so bad after all. This child acted like any other child anywhere else in the galaxy who saw someone different for the first time. “Yes, I’m real.”
The child swallowed hard. “What....what are you?”
“I’m human,” Natalie replied. “I come from a planet called Earth, and I’ve come to stay here with Kyan. Do you know Kyan?”
The child nodded. “He’s my cousin.”
Natalie’s eyes widened. “Your cousin!”
The child nodded again. “They said he came back. We’ve been waiting for him.”
Natalie looked around. “Who has been waiting? I don’t see any others.”
The child waved toward the treetops. “They’re at the village.”
“Where is the village?” Natalie asked.
The child didn’t answer. “Are you Police, too? My mother says he was on the Police.”
Natalie smiled. “I’m not Police, but I met him on the Police ship.” She pursed her lips. “It’s complicated.”
The child pursed its lips, too. “That’s what everybody says. That’s what my mother says when she doesn’t want me to know what’s going on.”
Natalie peered into the foliage. Where was Kyan? How long before he came back? “If you’ve been waiting, why haven’t the others come to see us? Why do they keep themselves hidden?”
The child put its head on one side. For the life of her, Natalie couldn’t figure out if it was male or female. “Are you male or female?”
Natalie blushed. “I’m female. Do you think Kyan would bring a male to live here?”
The child cocked its head the other way, but it didn’t answer her question. “They said there were others. Where are the others?”
Before she could answer, Kyan sailed up through the leaves and landed at her side. He set Melanie on her feet and let go of the creeper. Then he gazed down at the child. “What are you doing here, Malika? You should be at the village with the others.” He glanced at Natalie. “Malika’s my cousin.”
Natalie smiled down at the little girl. “She told me.”
Malika lowered her eyes. “I know I shouldn’t have come. Mother will be annoyed when she finds out. But I only wanted to see the strangers up close. You know they won’t let me come near them in the village.”
Kyan squared his shoulders. “Then you better get back before us. You’ve seen the strangers, so you go now, and your mother will never know you sneaked out when you weren’t supposed to.”
Malika raised her eyes to his face, and a glorious smile spread over her cheeks. Then, with a bound and a skip, she dove off the platform into the thick foliage. Only the twang of the creeper told Natalie she hadn’t plummeted to her death far below.
Melanie craned her neck to peer over the platform. “What was that all about?”
“Eblians are a quiet people,” Kyan told her. “We keep to ourselves, and we stay in our village and wait for visitors to come to us. That’s one way we protect ourselves from encroachment. Children especially are supposed to stay hidden until newcomers introduce themselves to the village elders. If Malika’s mother found out she came here to see you, she would be very angry.”
“Would she punish Malika?” Natalie asked.
Kyan tilted his head to one side. “Punish
? No, we don’t punish children, not even for an infraction as serious as that. Making their parents and relatives angry is punishment enough.”
Natalie and Melanie exchanged glances. “That’s an interesting way to look at it.”
Kyan turned away. “It seems to work.”
“But Malika came out here to see us when she shouldn’t have,” Natalie began.
“Do you really think she should be punished for that?” Kyan asked.
Natalie stared down at her toes. “Not really.”
Kyan sighed. “If you’re ready, we’ll go up to the village.”
Natalie surveyed her surroundings. “Where is it?”
He pointed up into the treetops. “Up there.”
Natalie couldn’t see anything. This world contained so many things she couldn’t see and couldn’t understand, but she would learn. She’d been on the planet less than two hours, and in a minute, she would meet her new people.
Kyan wrapped his arm around her waist again and pulled a creeper out of nowhere. In a flash, they zinged through the air and came to rest on another platform still higher in the canopy. Here, nothing separated them from the wide dome of sky. Clouds sailed through the blue firmament overhead, and miles and miles of endless forest stretched in all directions around them. Natalie couldn’t even see the lake.
But what really caught her attention was a cluster of leafy bunches dotting the canopy around her. They formed small stepping stones through the treetops around the platform. Another Eblian child peeked out from one of them. This child was definitely a male. When he spotted Kyan, he ducked back inside his leafy shelter.
Kyan let go of Natalie, and a moment later, Melanie joined them on the platform. Kyan let out his breath. “Here we go.”
He stepped onto a tree branch and picked his way over it toward one of those shelters. Natalie stared down at the branch. Was it strong enough to hold her? It must be, since Kyan outweighed her by a mile. Still, it looked dangerously fragile. It bounced at every step, but he tripped over it with quick, certain steps.
Alien Romance Box Set: Eblian Mates Complete Series (Books 1 - 3): A Sci-fi Alien Warrior Invasion Abduction Romance Page 16