by Rena Marks
Not that it was possible to cover them up whenever he was around anyway. Even a padded bra wouldn’t accomplish the job.
She sat down on their bed with her scrap of lace, about to shrug the straps over her shoulders.
A faint beeping came from the alarm. Damn it, she already knew she was late. She didn’t need a chirping reminder. She sprawled across the bed, stretching herself to reach the shut off button. But the damn thing continued chirping. She fiddled with it until it crashed.
Crashed.
She’d knocked it off the nightstand, smashed it to bits but it continued to chirp.
She felt herself being pulled from the dregs of her brain, feeling like cotton was stuffed into her head through her ears.
“Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no,” she moaned. Because she knew what this was. She waded through darkness, heaviness and then, suddenly bleary-eyed, she stared at the reality of the crashed alarm box, sprawled on the floor. A different floor. Not a large two bedroom apartment she shared with Trance, but a one bedroom that belonged to her alone. Lord, it didn’t even feel as if she’d been dreaming. No, this time it felt like she’d been in some kind of drugged trance.
Her dreams were getting worse. Or better, however you wanted to think of it.
But, shit. If the rapidly chirping alarm was any indication, she was late. She scrambled out of bed, took a two minute shower and brushed her teeth in there, one hand scrubbing soap onto her body while the other scrubbed her mouth. She barely dried off, shook out her wet hair, and grabbed the top half to knot into a loose bun. It was easier to take care of now that it was shorter. After work when her hair dried, she could remove the bun and it would fall into loose, face-framing waves. Not that anyone would care about the waves of her hair.
She’d chopped it to throw off the trail of her ex-husband, the wife-beater. She squirmed. It was still hard to believe that she’d been one of those women. A woman who made excuses for a man who hit her. A marriage that had tainted her and had marked her as stupid. As needy.
No time to make the bed. Her apartment showed the effects of her excessive sleeping lately. Towel flung over the shower stall messily. Nightgown tangled in the bed sheets because she kept unconsciously stripping herself naked during the night. Broken alarm box scattered on the floor. The third one she’d have to order this month. Clothes flung around in her closet.
But the mess would have to wait.
She hurried from her apartment, ignoring the one right next door. The one he lived in.
Trance.
Through the main hall she hurried, bumping into—of all people—her self-proclaimed best friend, Tempest.
“Leah.” Tempest was beautiful, like model-perfect at all times. It was no wonder her mate, Shawn, was head over heels for her.
“Sorry, Temp. Running behind,” she said, hurrying through. “I’ll call you later, okay?”
“Yes, girlfriend.” Tempest narrowed her eyes at her. “We have to talk, Leah. You’re running ragged.”
“I know!” She blew Tempest a kiss. Mostly because, yeah, she cared for the crazy Xeno Sapien woman. But also because she wanted to see what the goofball would do.
Tempest didn’t let her down. She raised her hand and caught the airborne “kiss.” Then, not knowing what to do with it, she rolled her eyes and shoved it in her pocket.
Leah laughed. Oh, Lord, that was just the thing she needed. Tempest’s reactions were always priceless. She burst through the massive, double doors of the main hub to bright sunshine. Dozens of Xeno Sapiens milled about on the front steps. And as she hurried to get down the steps, she saw the same sight from her dreams.
Trance, holding a box of food ingredients in his arms.
She stared at him in shock, her harried brain flung right back into her recent dreams over this instant sense of déjà vu.
This time, of course, they weren’t married. That was just a figment of her imagination. Along with all the hot sex they had. The fact that they still lived together was made up, too. Embarrassing, really. She’d lived with him briefly while he sponsored her from the homeless camps. He’d helped lock her ex-husband away. It was a one bedroom, and sleeping awkwardly in the same bed was probably the cause of her sexual dreams. But Trance was in no way her husband. Not while in the awake world. Only in the world of her dreams.
“You’re late,” he said, his gorgeous eyes taking in her wet hair. His voice wasn’t the gentle, loving tone from her dreams. More matter of fact, wary. Controlled.
“I know. I’m sleeping in and yet I’m more exhausted than if I never slept. Is that for me?”
Instead of handing her the box, he held it closer to his chest. “Yes. I’ll carry it.”
She took a quick peek inside. Bok choy. Carrots. Soy sauce. Noodles. Wonton wrappers. All the ingredients for an Asian inspired meal. A recipe that was one of her fall-backs because it was quick to produce with its simplicity. And yet delicious. A favorite recipe.
From her dream.
“Where did you get this?” she snapped at Trance. She was always snapping at Trance. Perhaps that was why he was so wary, but he didn’t seem to understand that she didn’t need a man. Would never again need a man. In fact, never wanted anything to do with another man as long as she lived, because quite frankly, that was the only reason why she still lived.
Except for her damn dreams, which she lived for.
He looked straight at her. “You asked me to get these ingredients. It’s a backup recipe for the days when you run late. You’ll have to remember to mark in your notes later which recipe you changed today’s schedule for.”
Her panic cleared. That made sense. She wasn’t thinking clearly, probably because of her sleep patterns. She kept forgetting small details here and there. An appointment with Robyn. Twice she’d mixed up her cooking lessons.
“You don’t have to come with me to work,” she said.
“I won’t stay. I just need to make sure you get there all right.” His jaw was set stubbornly. “We need to talk.”
“Yeah. Unfortunately, Tempest wants to get together and talk, too. I don’t have time for all this talking.”
“Make time, Leah. You’re about to crash and burn, running on pure adrenaline like you are. You’re trying to avoid your feelings—”
“Trance, I don’t need someone taking care of me,” she said. It was a conversation they had many times. A conversation that caused her to move out of his one room apartment and into the vacant apartment next door. A punishment, but for either him or her, she wasn’t sure. Because, hell, how could she keep living with the man who was so kind as to sponsor her when she kept having these weird sexual fantasies about him? Had completely made up another world in her dreams where they were husband and wife?
“Okay,” he sighed. “You don’t want to talk. How about a trade-off? You just hang with me, put my mind at ease. And we’ll skip the talk. I’ll even have Tempest back off with her own talk. Tell her to be your friend but leave the ‘talks’ aside.”
Leah felt a weight lift from her shoulders. “I’d like that.”
“Come on, then. Pax’s multiples are waiting.”
She stopped abruptly. How the hell did Trance know who was on her schedule today? She knew she couldn’t have told him.
That was one of the two cooking lessons she’d screwed up.
The End
Sorry about the delay of Trance and Leah’s book, which was scheduled to be after Sextet, Book 10. In her usual way, Tempest jumped up and took control, butting in to become Book 11. And now, it’s a little difficult to delve into Trance’s book because the timeline has shifted a bit. I’m not quite sure where his book will now begin, or if perhaps it’ll have a few glimpses back into the timeframe of when they met. We’ll sort out all those fun details in another month’s time! In the meantime, have you signed up for my newsletter? It’s getting harder and harder to connect with readers, so I’m going to be more faithful about focusing on a newsletter. You can find the link on my website (I
know, my website needs updating. So many non-writing chores!) or on my FB author page.
Falling For Trance, available now on KU! https://books2read.com/u/3kpqyO
Xeno Sapiens
Catch up with the first novel in the series! The original Xeno Sapiens story.
Futuristic earth finds alien DNA and creates a new species of hybrids in hidden labs. It’s up to two small females to teach these beings they’re worthy, and beautiful, and loved…and to save them from mankind.
My name is Dr. Robyn Saraven. Earth has changed greatly in recent years, the governments of the world merging into one united front, the Global Government. Disease, starvation, and prejudice have been eradicated from our existence, and it appears our growth as spiritual beings is finally on track.
But the discovery of alien DNA pairs a prestigious research facility with our government to create new beings. Suddenly our spiritual growth is halted when mankind plays God. Like old Earth, our modern-day world has to deal with prejudice, corruption, and greed.
Or was it always there, lurking beneath the surface?
Book 1—Xeno Sapiens
Book 2—Earth-Ground
Book 3—Siren
Book 4—Beast’s Beauty
Book 5—Almost Human
Book 6—Forbidden Touches
Book 7—Coveting Ava
Book 8—For Everly
Book 9—Assassin’s Mate
Book 10—Sextet
Book 11—Tempting Tempest
Book 12—Falling For Trance
Alien Stolen
Rena Marks
Our world is different from anything we’ve ever known. Years ago, aliens came to live among us. They claim to be the good guys, and yet every day, humans go missing—never to be heard from again.
Sian and her family resist the leadership of the new regime, along with dozens of other factions across the world. However, without electricity, they’re at a loss as to how to communicate with each other to band together for strength in numbers. For that reason, they fight alone. When her father and best friend are captured by the military, she pretends to be a pleasure worker to infiltrate the base. Unbeknownst to her, a pleasure worker has been summoned to service a new breed of alien—one with a known weakness. Sex drains his strength.
None of the militia realizes that when a Nisibian comes across his mate, he doesn’t lose his power…but instead transfers it to her.
Drunk on the power of being a female Rambo, Sian decides to steal the massive alien for herself. This much power at her fingertips could tip the scales in the resistance fight for humans.
Abducted
Book 1 in the Blue Barbarian series.
Alien abductions are real.
I was the third female awakened aboard the spacecraft that specialized in kidnapping females. Their mission? To sell us to other galaxies.
Human female Numbers One and Two didn’t make it, but I was lucky. I was able to comprehend the instruction from Drakar, a caged abductee from the planet Blaedonia. I live only because of his warning to me not to fight the aliens who have me on the table. Together, we formulate a plan for escape for both us and the ten other unawakened Earthlings.
Lucky for Drakar, the spaceship crash-lands back on his planet. Unlucky for the Earthlings, we’ll never be able to travel back home.
We’ll have to learn to adapt.
Book 1—Abducted
Book 2—Stranded
Book 3—Taken
Book 4—Captive
Book 5—Stolen
Book 6—Betrayed
Space Babies
Book 1 of the Purple People Series
Rena Marks
An antiquated ship, rotating through the galaxy of a deserted planet, bears immediate investigation.
Helian Six boards the abandoned vessel to find the long-lost inhabitants in a state of stasis. But the systems are failing, and half a dozen have woken up. The planet below shows long dead bodies, poisoned by the scum of space, a species known as Gorgians.
Strangely, the few who have awakened are much smaller than their planetary predecessors. And not very intelligent. Determined to believe the cute, tiny beings are not pets, the crew of Helian Six decide to train the small warriors to defend the planet. They become the laughingstock of patrol, however, after they commit and realize it will take twenty-two cycles to “rear” the inhabitants.
So they do what any intelligent males would do. Kidnap teachers. And if the females can’t manage to avert their eyes from their buff physiques, well, score!
Artificial Intelligence
Rena Marks
The Sirian galaxy has blown itself up during a war that mimicked that of the destruction of her own planet, Terra. No stranger to slavery, Arian has escaped from the planet Zeta where she’s been raised to breed royalty.
The Artificial Intelligence is a collective unit from the Sirian Planet B. They’d warned the leaders that a civil war would destroy the galaxy to no avail. In order to escape being destroyed along with the rest, they inserted their intelligence into the computer system.
Imagine Arian’s surprise when she encounters a huge piece of chipped planet, which her computer claims to have ancient Sirian artifacts buried in its hollowed core.
Nothing can possibly be alive. The contamination gases from the nuclear war have destroyed everything in sight. But Arian is a scavenger, and these are ancient artifacts…
Unfortunately, her hacked computer never tells her the artifacts are actually metal skeletons whose bodies need to be grown into dangerously hot men.
Stargazer Series
In 1692, a starship carrying volunteers arrived on planet Earth near a small town called Salem, Massachusetts. The long journey across many light years caused the female inhabitants aboard drastic memory loss. It was already known when they would arrive on Earth, they would have no memories of who and what they really were. They would be as helpless as newborn lambs.
The goal was to breed with Earthlings, to prevent their own race from dying out. If it was successful, years later more Stargazers would be sent to co-exist with the humans on Planet Earth.
But alas—the females were slaughtered.
Book 1—The Hunter
Dante and Kele
Book 2 —The Enforcer
Diamond and Felicia
Book 3 —The Defender
Hayze and Cassio
Book 4 —The Protector
Neo and Jessie
Book 5 —The Guardian
Vesta and Bay
Book 6 —The Destroyer
Jace and Mia
The Hunter
Prologue:
The atmosphere in the grand council meeting was tense, grim even. In the center of the room, laser lights of green and blue flashed, drawing attention to the enlarged hologram of the speaker. Around the hologram stood dozens of females. They were dressed in odd clothing, obviously not from this world. The fabric looked coarse, and the garments were crudely designed. They consisted of shapeless cumbersome gowns. Some of the women even wore strange head coverings.
And then the voice boomed.
“We are gathered here to review the report on the future of our race. I am Nepa, and I am your general speaker.”
He paused, allowing the audience time to adjust to the beginning of his speech. The pause wasn't necessary, however, as the entire planet was riveted to this life-altering event.
“As you are all aware, we have spent decades on one ongoing problem. Our females are slowly becoming infertile. At this point, there is a huge imbalance on our planet, with males outnumbering females six to one. With all of our advanced technology, we cannot figure out why. The dilemma of the council consists of reaching out to inhabitable planets to decide if we can co-exist with other species. To interbreed. It is a dilemma because those planets are not as technologically advanced as we are, most are not even aware other space inhabitants exist. Their ignorance may cause fear. What we can offer to those planets is a solution to
their own in-breeding, and to share knowledge of future ramifications. As we have discovered, eventually the gene pool narrows so dramatically that every culture faces the same problem we have, the phasing out of a species. We offer this benefit to smaller planets, the knowledge of our experience without having to find out the hard way, as we did.
“However, we are not making contact with other planets at this point. Instead, our scouts will be sent out to see if conditions are favorable.
“Naturally, that is a concern. At this point, our females are precious and few. It hurts every one of us to ship them off to a strange new planet to adapt. We are grateful for the brave volunteers.”
Huge clapping ensued. The hologram vision bowed his head, signaling acknowledgment of the applause. When the clapping ended, he raised his head to speak again.
“We cannot send males at this time. Radiation from the youth of certain stars have rendered males infertile. The feminine reproductive system is encased within the body, protecting it from radiation. We have tried everything possible to mimic the results with males, to no avail. And we are out of time. If we do not split our planet at this time, we face the very grim reality of our population dying out. However, we continue to work on the problem and are confident that males will be able to travel without the threat of sterilization in the next decade. In the meantime, we wish a positive farewell to the cherished females of our planet.
“You each will arrive in various—but nearby—locations on a planet called Earth. We chose Earth because of their limited communications and technology. It is completely necessary that our scouts do not interfere with the education of their planet, instead allowing them to self-educate naturally. For this, our scouts have each agreed to be placed in stasis.”
Hushed whispers swept through the audience.