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Nero (Scifi Alien Romance) (Cosmic Champions)

Page 13

by Luna Hunter


  “Oh, just put that on my desk,” I tell her. “You don’t have to carry my things, Ava.”

  “Nonsense,” she replies as she puts the box down. “You got me this sweet gig, so as far as I’m concerned, your wish is my command.”

  In a few days’ time this room will be transformed into my office, my home away from home, but right now it’s just a scattered mess of unopened boxes.

  “Want me to help you unpack?”

  “No,” I tell her, “we’ve got plenty of time. It’ll be months before we reach our destination.”

  “Of course you need help,” she insists as she opens the box. “You’re drowning in boxes.”

  “N-no,” I stammer, but it’s too late.

  “What’s this?” Ava asks as she fishes a pale grey stuffed animal out of the opened box.

  I snatch it from her grasp.

  “That’s Mr. Fluffles,” I say, my cheeks turning crimson. “And you keep those lips sealed.”

  Ava tries not to laugh, but she does a poor job of it.

  “The Sarah Granger has a teddy bear?”

  “The Sarah Granger is just a human being,” I tell her. “Nothing more.”

  “You’re too modest. You’re the only woman I know who has been published in Nature while still a teenager, who graduated cum laude when she was only 22! I mean, you’re the Spearhead’s chief scientist and we’re almost the same age!”

  I cross my arms over my chest. I don’t take compliments very well. All I can think about are all the things I have yet to accomplish. Sure, I got good grades, but at the expense of a social life. When I see Ava in the mess hall, flirting with the soldiers, I can’t help but feel jealous of her natural charm.

  Men are usually intimidated by my accolades, or uninterested in my curves. So I just pour more time into my studies, bury my nose in the books, perpetuating the cycle.

  “Don’t speak a word on Mr. Fluffles,” I say, hugging the worn-out teddy bear close to my chest. “Or I’ll revoke your assistant status, and we’ll be forced to leave you on some alien planet.”

  Ava fake-gasps. “You wouldn’t.”

  “Probably not,” I say. “But don’t test me!”

  “My lips are sealed,” she says. “May I ask why you still have a teddy, though?”

  “You may not, but since you already have… it was a gift from my father.”

  I look at the worn-out teddy bear. Well-loved, my mother would say. All the fur is gone, its left eye hanging on by a thread. Some may consider it hideous, but to me it’s beautiful.

  “It’s all that I have left of him.”

  I glance up to see Ava is tearing up.

  “I’m sorry for mocking you. I didn’t know. I, I read an interview…” her voice trails off, her eyes avoiding mine.

  “Ah, so you stalked me?”

  “I did my research.”

  “So you know what happened?”

  “I know he’s no longer with us,” she answers softly.

  “My father was a police officer who was killed in an anti-Zoran riot when I was five years old,” I say bluntly. I know that when I say it likes that it makes people uncomfortable, but I don’t care. The truth is uncomfortable.

  “My condolences.”

  “Thank you,” I answer. “He’s the reason I got into Alien Studies. All my life I’ve been trying to understand what can drive people to such violence.”

  Ava bites her bottom lip. “Do you know the answer?”

  “I do not.”

  My com beeps, breaking the awkward silence.

  “This is Captain Ferguson, please report to my office, over.”

  “Duty calls,” I tell Ava as I place Mr. Fluffles on my desk.

  “How do you like your new quarters, Dr. Graham?”

  Donovan Ferguson, the pompous man elevated to the position of captain of the HF Spearhead, is staring at me from behind his oversized desk. I get the distinct impression that he’s trying to compensate for something…

  “It’s fine,” I answer.

  “Fine? Not great?”

  I have to stop myself from rolling my eyes. “They’re great, Donovan.”

  “Please,” he says, “call me Captain. This is a military vessel, after all. I know you’re an academic so all of this is new to you, but there are certain protocols in place. You understand.”

  I have to bite the inside of my cheek to stop from sneering.

  “I understand, Captain,” I grit through my teeth.

  I don’t do protocol very well. For someone who majored in Alien Studies you’d think I could grasp human rules of conduct, but you’d be surprised.

  “Good,” he says, rapping his fingers on his leather armrest. “Good good good.”

  “May I ask why you called me here?” I ask. “…Sir,” I add after he frowns at me.

  “Just trying to get to know my crew, that’s all,” he says. “We’ll be forced to rely on each other for months.”

  I plan to stay as far away from Ferguson as possible, but seeing as he’s the captain, that might prove difficult. I don’t rely on anyone but myself. Then again, simply by being on this spaceship I’m putting my life in the hands of an army of engineers and mechanics. One simple mistake or miscalculation might prove fatal to us all… but that’s something I try not to think about.

  “So… can I go?”

  “Hm? Oh, yes, yes.”

  I turn around, which is quite difficult with Ferguson’s desk taking up three quarters of the room, and stride out of his office. I’m still simmering with anger over the captain’s arrogance, so I don’t notice the giant blue Zoran until my nose is pressed right into his broad, naked chest.

  My heart skips a beat as my eyes slowly scan up his towering frame.

  This man is big.

  His naked chest, the color of the ocean, is covered in tattoos and scars. He’s only wearing a pair of shorts, and I notice his knuckles are bloody.

  Why is there a half-naked Zoran warrior in the hallway?!

  Two violet eyes stare at me. His eyebrows are furrowed, as if he can’t comprehend why I’m in his way. Heat rises to my cheeks instantly.

  I want to move out of the way, but the hallway is simply too small for the both of us. All I can do is backtrack into the captain’s office, and every step back I take, the Zoran takes one forward, his imposingly tall frame towering over me the entire time.

  I’ve never felt so small, so cornered, so trapped before. My heart is racing like mad, and for reasons unexplained, my stomach is fluttering.

  His scent, so manly, so strong, completely surrounds me.

  “W-what’s this?” Ferguson stammers when the seven foot tall Zoran warrior steps into his office. “W-who are you?”

  “Kazim,” he growls, his voice low and animalistic.

  He doesn’t even look up at the captain. His eyes, the color of lavender, are focused on me and me alone.

  “What in the blazes are you doing here?!”

  A second tall Zoran follows Kazim into the captain’s office. Judging by his obsidian armor, and his chest full of medals, he’s a bonafide Zoran General.

  Ferguson snaps to attention instantly, saluting the general.

  “I’m adding Kazim to your roster,” the general says matter of factly.

  “T-this is not according to protocol,” the captain protests.

  The general’s eyes flicker in anger.

  “You’ll take him,” he growls, his voice low, a threat lingering underneath the surface.

  Ferguson swallows the lump in his throat.

  I don’t have enough eyes for this conversation. I want to stare at the Zoran General, who is flexing his muscles, and at Captain Ferguson, who is trembling in the presence of two powerful aliens, and at Kazim, the barely dressed blue warrior, at his broad shoulders, his sculpted abs, his shorts which can barely contain his greatness… but I can’t see any of those things because his radiant eyes, as purple as amethysts, demand my attention.

  “W-why is he not in
uniform?” Ferguson says, trying to sound authoritative.

  “There was no time,” the general answers. “Find a use for him.”

  “How am I supposed to do that?!”

  “You’ll think of something, Captain,” the general says. He nods and strides out the office, leaving us three alone.

  Ferguson looks at me, a mixture of fear, humiliation and anger in his crystal blue eyes. Then, I see them light up, as if a lightbulb has gone off in his head.

  “Kazim?”

  “Hm?” the alien warrior growls.

  “From now on you’re Dr. Graham’s personal bodyguard. Don’t let her out of your sight.”

  The blue, half-naked warrior smirks and I feel my heart sink.

  Oh please no.

  Click here to continue reading The Zoran’s Bride!

  Preview of The Zoran’s Mate

  I must have her. And what I want, I take.

  When Ava Payne is asked by her best friend Sarah Granger if she’ll teach a class in her place, Ava happily agrees. Her best friend is pregnant with a Zoran baby after all, and after narrowly escaping the horrible Nezdek on their previous mission, this should be a welcome change of pace.

  Ava quickly regrets that decision when the Nezdek invade Earth, kidnap her, and strip her naked. The awful, pale aliens want to breed Sarah, but they’ll settle for Ava.

  When their ship is attacked, the aliens dump her on a random, seemingly uninhabited planet and promise to return later. There seems to be no way out for her. But when Ava stumbles into a cave to find shelter, she’s in for a big surprise…

  Turnon has been living on this world for as long as he can remember, completely alone. The tall alien warrior thinks he’s the only one of his species left alive… until a curvy human female wanders into his cave and turns his world upside down.

  The barbaric, possessive alien doesn’t completely understand his complex feelings for Ava, but he knows one thing for sure: He wants her. And what he wants, he takes.

  1. Ava

  “Good morning, class. My name is Ava Payne and I’ll be your substitute teacher for today.”

  A collective groan passes through the classroom, and already I can see some students close their laptops and head for the doors. Off to a great start…

  “Not so fast,” I protest. “I know you all came here to see Dr. Granger, but unfortunately, she can’t be here today. Or tomorrow. Or the rest of the semester, for that matter.”

  “Why not?!” a blonde girl on the front row protests as she pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “We all took this class especially to meet Sarah Granger!”

  “She is on maternity leave,” I say.

  My best friend got herself knocked up by a big, blue Zoran warrior, and I get to pick up the pieces.

  “However, I was on the Spearhead as well,” I continue. “I traveled alongside the Suuna. I’m sure you were dying to quiz Dr. Granger, but I can answer all of your questions as well.”

  “Oh yeah?!” the prissy blonde in the front says. She grabs a copy of her textbook and holds it up for me to see. My Life on Archon — 24 Hours with the Nezdek or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Zoran. The book Sarah wrote about her adventures on Archon, dealing with the Nezdek has become a runaway hit. “Were you enslaved by aliens? Did you face the Demogorgon in the pit? Did you strike down the otherworldly beast with your own two hands? Have you been embraced by a Suuna and seen the Drua, Miss Payne?! Have you found love in the hands of a wounded alien warrior?!”

  I knew this wasn’t going to be an easy class to teach — Sarah is a hard act to follow, through no fault of her own — but they’re really giving me a hard time out there. Hundreds of eyes are looking at me, each one scowling, filled with disappointment and anger.

  “No,” I say. “No, I haven’t been impregnated by a Zoran, if that’s what you want to know.”

  And I hope I never am. Yeah, they’re sexy, tall, strong — but they’re also cocky, arrogant, impossible. Possessive. I can’t be tied down like that, I’m a bird. I need to fly.

  “But, I am Sarah’s best friend, whether you believe it or not. I started off as her research assistant, but a lot has happened since then, as I’m sure you’ve all read by now. I was part of the Spearhead, of the mission, and even though I haven’t been through the same horrible ordeals as her, I’m still the most suitable person to teach this class. After all, you’re here to learn ‘Alien Etiquette’,” I say, pointing at the title of class up on the beamer behind me. “You’re here to become diplomats and ambassadors, are you not?”

  “Yes,” the class responds unenthusiastically.

  “Good, then let’s get started.”

  Our mission aboard the spaceship the HF Spearhead was to find a new home for the Zorans; the growly, seven-foot-tall alien warriors that have made Earth their home since their world was destroyed, several decades ago. Instead, we ended up with no fuel in the middle of nowhere, and Sarah and her Zoran bodyguard, Kazim, had to go ask the local aliens for help.

  The local aliens turned out to be of the enslaving raping murdering kind. The Nezdek, they’re called — tall, thin, ghostly pale, with white eyes and long hair and a penchant for torture. Sarah and Kazim barely escaped with their lives, and we rushed home, freeing their Suuna slaves in the process.

  Now, Sarah and I are lecturers at the Federation’s Academy, preparing the latest batch of fresh-faced recruits for what horrors they might face in deep space.

  At least, that’s what I’m trying to do. Instead, all they seem to care about is Sarah’s daring escape, or how Kazim changed from a bare-knuckled boxer to a hero, like this is just some fun, adventurous story.

  This is not some story to me and Sarah. This is our life!

  “Now, if you’ll all turn to ‘Chapter Three: First Encounter’ on your tablets. Who has read this one?”

  All hands fly up in an instant. At least they’ve done their homework!

  “Good! Can anyone tell me what this chapter is about?”

  A dark-haired girl with a red sweater raises her hand. I realize I should know all of their names, but this is my first class, and there’s hundreds of them. Articles of clothing it is.

  “Yes, red sweater?”

  “It’s about how defiant Sarah is, when faced with the slaving aliens!”

  “No,” the prissy blonde interrupts. “It’s obviously about how courageous Kazim is! God, can you even read?”

  “Be nice, white cardigan,” I tell her. “You’re both wrong, as a matter of fact. It’s not about courage, or defiance. It’s about adapting to the situation! The Nezdek consider women a commodity. To them, we are slaves. Servants. Cattle. Breeding stock. We could say we’re shocked, outraged and horrified, and trust me, you’d have good reason to be, but you can also say: now that we know this, how do we deal with them? When faced with this prejudice, Sarah and Kazim adapted to the situation. Kazim took the lead in the negotiations, even though Sarah technically outranked him. That, to me, is the core of this chapter.”

  The red-sweatered woman raises her hand again.

  “Are you suggesting we accept their backwards morals? I mean, they’re slavers! Shouldn’t we be fighting them?!”

  “So, you are suggesting we, as humans, are always right? That our moral compass is infallible?”

  The girl scrunches her nose. “Well, in this case… yeah.”

  “In this case, you’re right,” I say. “Of course the Nezdek’s ideas are barbaric. However, you have to remember that Sarah and Kazim were stranded in space, without fuel. They were helpless, and completely at the alien’s mercy. They had no other choice than to cooperate, really. And in the end, they used the Nezdek’s rules against them, using an ancient ceremony to free the Suuna and themselves. Poetic justice.”

  The class furiously scribbles notes, and I feel like I’m finally getting somewhere. Beforehand I was so nervous I got stomach cramps. Facing evil aliens is one thing, facing a class full of critical students is another!
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  “Great. Now, please turn to Chapter Four, and —”

  Before I can finish my sentence my world is flipped upside down.

  Literally.

  I’m floating, my feet up straight in the air, my dark hair touching the ground. For a second I wonder if I’m having a bad dream; if this has all been some kind of weird, stressful nightmare and I’m seconds away from waking up, clammy and tangled up in sheets, but then the entire class screams. The high-pitched noise hurts my ears, and I cover them with both hands, my feet kicking up in the air — senselessly.

  The roof itself is lifted off the university roof with a hellish sound that makes the entire building quake. A white, blinding light surrounds me, and I’m floating up into the air.

  This must be a bad dream. It has to be.

  As I’m lifted up high, I can see the rest of the city — and it’s going up in flames. Thousands of spaceships are opening fire, seemingly at random, shooting, burning, killing.

  The sound of senseless destruction washes over me like an ocean, and I’m too stunned to even react. Instead, I just stare, my mouth open, my eyes wide. A single thought crosses my mind.

  Those alien spaceships have the same three-pronged design as the Nezdek ships.

  They followed us.

  And they’re invading Earth.

  2. Ava

  I was having the most horrible dream. The kind filled with evil aliens invading Earth, and being sucked up into the sky, and watching the entire city go up in flames.

  I’m glad to find myself back in bed, a cozy blanket covering me. Darkness surrounds me, and I breathe a sigh of relief. Time to get up and prepare for my lecture this afternoon. The students will be disappointed they won’t get ‘the’ Sarah Granger as their teacher, but it can’t get any worse than my fucked up dream.

  I try to open my eyes… but I can’t.

  Strange.

  Am I still asleep?

  I try to lift my hands, to stretch my arms above my head, but I can’t move them either. Something that feels like leather straps seem to be keeping them in place. I try to wiggle my big toe, but I can’t move my feet either.

  Oh god.

  What’s happening?

  Did I hit my head in the shower or something? Am I in some kind of coma?

  “Er slkave est woch.”

 

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