by Alyssa Ezra
THE ALIEN BEAST
ALYSSA EZRA
Copyright 2016 by Alyssa Ezra
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced
in any way whatsoever, without written permission
from the author, except in case of brief
quotations embodied in critical reviews
and articles.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any
character, person, living or dead, events, place or
organizations is purely coincidental. The author does not
have any control over and does not assume any responsibility
for third party websites or their content.
First edition, 2016
DESCRIPTION
Grieving for the loss of her boyfriend, killed tragically years before, Simone goes to their favorite picnic spot to remember the good times. What this beautiful, curvy young woman doesn’t know is that she has captured the heart of a hunky alien warrior who seeks to have her as his soul mate.
Using his advanced technology to spirit her to his bizarre planet, Storm Kar declares his eternal love for her. Though possessing the sculpted body of an Adonis, he has the face of a red-eyed beast, and Simone is terrified of him.
Desperate to show her that he is gentle and kind, Storm Kar asks her to stay a month on his world so that he can prove his feelings for her. She reluctantly agrees, knowing that she will only ever love her late boyfriend and cannot imagine ever feeling the same for the brooding, fearsome Storm Kar.
What follows is a steamy romance of thrilling science fantasy as Storm Kar shows Simone his strange and varied world and introduces her to its equally bizarre inhabitants.
As she slowly falls in love with his world and develops feelings for Storm Kar himself, she has to struggle with the memories of the past and come to a final decision about making a new future for herself.
As passions grow stronger and desire becomes all consuming, she must make the final sacrifice if she is ever to have a second chance at true happiness.
Chapter 1: An Aching Loss
The evening sky was a burnished canvas of soft oranges and reds as Simone drove the pick-up truck along the wide tracks of the Garrowgate Nature Reserve. As she neared the wide lake situated to the north of the Reserve, she felt her chest tightening as memories drifted to the surface of her mind.
She felt the tears misting her eyes and took a deep breath, telling herself sternly not to fall to pieces. It had been over four years ago since Dean had died, but right at that moment, it felt like only yesterday.
Simone wiped her eyes and drove down to the water’s edge. Getting out of the pick-up, she went round to the back and took out the blanket and picnic basket that were located there.
To a casual observer, it might seem strange for a woman to be having a picnic at this late hour, but Simone had a very good reason to be here at this time. It was at precisely seven pm as they sat looking out at the pink dappled waters of the lake that Dean had proposed to her.
Simone laid out the blanket and put down the picnic basket. She had been so happy that night so long ago, and had immediately made plans for their upcoming wedding. Dean said they would go to Bali, and Simone had fantasised about a long, sizzling honeymoon on a golden beach beneath tropical skies.
After that, they would move into a beautiful house and have as many beautiful children as they possibly could. Simone had always longed to have a large family. A week later Dean was dead, killed instantly in an automobile accident. The dream of a future filled with happiness and light died with him.
Mechanically, she opened the picnic basket and started to take out the plates. She did everything exactly the same as that fateful night. Every detail was carved into her brain and she replayed their last intimate time together on an endless loop inside her mind.
She even wore the same clothes as well, the tight dark blue jeans that showed off the shapely curves of her hips, along with the black crop top vest made of lace that complemented her ample cleavage.
“I love you in that top babe,” he would say with a dopey grin on his boyish face. “It makes you look even sexier than I saw you the first time.”
A faint smile drifted across her face as she remembered him saying that. He was always saying goofy stuff. Once she’d laid out the food and got the wine, she sat down on the blanket and poured out two glasses.
She put one opposite her and brought her own glass to her lips, closing her eyes as she sipped the wine. Part of her said this was crazy and her mom and friends all thought she should have moved on by now. This yearly ritual, coming back to the same spot at the same time was only keeping the grief alive, that’s what they believed.
Simone had tried to move on, she really had. She’d tried dating, tried to make a go of it with other guys but her efforts had met with disappointment and disaster.
None of them lived up to Dean and the life she’d had with him. She had been so lost and unhappy before he came into her life and now that he’d been so abruptly taken from her she was back to square one, only it was much, much worse now.
A cool breeze came from the lake and caressed her face and neck. She closed her eyes, luxuriating in its soft touch and imagining the feel of Dean’s large hands on her body again. The pain of loss became too much then and she let out a strangled sob.
She put down her glass and hugging herself tightly, lay down on the rug curled up into a defensive ball. Now the tears flowed freely as she let her aching grief engulf her, and the world faded away into grey oblivion.
* * *
She felt more than heard the noise. It thrummed through her body, making her bones vibrate. For a moment, Simone didn’t know where she was or what was going on, but her eyes suddenly snapped open and she found herself looking up at the star laced canopy of night.
She must have fallen asleep, she realized belatedly. Reaching into her bag, she found her phone and glanced at it to check the time. The phone was lifeless, its blank screen completely unresponsive. The noise came again, a deep seismic moan that sent a chill through her heart.
Frightened, she sat up abruptly knocking over the open bottle of wine that was near her foot. “Damn it!” she hissed as the alcohol poured onto the grass. Picking it up, she got to her feet as the noise ran through the parkland again. It sent a thrill through her chest and made her go weak at the knees. The noise seemed to be calling out to her, beckoning her toward its source.
Putting the bottle down upright on the ground, she started to walk towards the forest on the left side of the lake. Some instinct told her this was where the noise was coming from and she felt compelled to find out what it was, pulled along by some nebulous compulsion.
As she entered the woods, the noise came again more frequently and louder. It was like the heartbeat of some colossal monster, and Simone wanted to turn round and run back to the pick-up truck. She didn’t though. An unseen force kept her feet moving forwards and her gut told her she had to find out what was making the sound.
Moving deeper amongst the trees, she suddenly spotted a scintillating golden light just off to the left. The noise was even louder now, more insistent and coming from where the light was. Leaves and twigs crunched underfoot as Simone moved towards it like a moth attracted to a flame.
The light grew brighter as she approached, reaching out tendrils of energy toward her, as if beckoning her to join it. T
he sound filled every cell of her being now, consuming her and filling her skull with its tenebrous thrum.
“What’s happening?” she called out to the light, her overwhelmed senses telling her that the light was somehow sentient. “What are you?”
The light suddenly flared brighter and she had to look away. As she did so, the tendrils reached her and wrapped around her waist, taking on a physicality that was impossible. They grabbed her tightly and dragged her toward the blinding light.
“No!” she screamed, “let me go!”
The light did not respond. It became an all-encompassing presence and swallowed her whole. Simone screamed before tumbling into unconsciousness.
Chapter 2: The Beast With The Burning Eyes
She stood in an endless white void, lost and alone. Fear gripped her and she stared around in confusion, trying to make sense of what was happening. Then, from out of the vast emptiness, a man dressed in a white robe walked towards her. He looked strangely familiar, and Simone’s eyes widened in shock as she suddenly realized who it was.
“Dean,” she gasped. “Dean, is that you?”
Dean gave her a beatific smile as he reached out to hold her hands. “I’ve missed you so much,” he whispered.
“Oh Dean!” Simone sobbed and wrapped her arms around his neck. She crushed her lips against his in a wild all-consuming kiss. He held her tightly, taking away her pain and grief before slowly moving free of her fierce embrace.
“I have to go now,” he said, smiling sadly.
Simone’s eyes widened with horror. “No! You can’t leave me again!”
He slipped away and started to turn. Like a wildcat, she lunged forward and grabbed his arm.
“Please!” she moaned. “Please stay!”
He looked at her and ran his fingers through her short, red hair. “It’s not my time anymore. You have to accept that. Don’t worry though. I’ll always be with you.”
“Don’t go!” Simone begged again. “Please! Take me with you!”
Dean shook his head. “You have a different path. Be happy.”
She was about to plead with him some more when an invisible force suddenly grabbed her from behind. She screamed as she was pulled backwards away from his smiling face and sad eyes, and everything went black again.
* * *
Simone woke with a half strangled cry, sitting bolt upright. “Dean!” she exclaimed, before realizing no one was there. Just a dream, her mind told her as she was stabbed by a knife thrust of despair.
Bitterness seeped through her and then the dream was abruptly forgotten as she gazed around without comprehension at her surroundings.
She was no longer in the nature reserve. She was sitting on a strange looking mat in a room that looked like nothing she’d ever seen before in her life. Smooth walls of glittering quartz swept upwards to a majestically vaulted ceiling where glowing orbs of vibrant amber light gliding serenely around each other in a stately, languid dance.
The floor beneath the mat stretched out around her like a shimmering vista of living mandalas of ever changing multi-coloured light. Simone stared at the hypnotic patterns, lost in their brilliance.
Simone blinked and pulled her gaze away abruptly. Where the hell was she? Gingerly, she got off the mat and set her feet onto the ever-swirling floor.
As soon as she did a chime rang out across the strange room making her almost jump out of her skin. She froze in her tracks waiting for something bad to happen, but nothing else stirred in the room.
Cautiously, she started moving further across the floor. As she did so, she spotted a huge chunk of white crystal set against the wall to the left of her.
It began to pulse with light and opened outwards revealing a doorway behind it. Simone stared at it warily and her heart jumped into her mouth as a man came to stand in the frame and gazed over at her.
“Good, you’re awake,” he said in a deep, low voice that made her skin pebble with goose bumps. In the dim light from the orbs he was a vague outline, a broad silhouette that showed him to be tall and sleekly contoured. A flare of irrational hope surged through her.
“Dean?” she called out as her legs turned to water.
“No,” his voice came back, flat and edged with regret.
She frowned and glanced around for another means of escape, but finding none.
“Who are you?” she demanded, refusing to let her gnawing fear get the better of her.
“Where am I?”
The mysterious man stepped further into the room, helping her take a better look at him. As his outline had indicated, he was finely toned and well developed physically.
He was clad in a pair of tight pants made of buckskin, along with a matching open vest that showed off the sculpted muscles of his smooth bare chest and his broad arms.
Simone’s heart quickened and her breath caught in her throat as her eyes lingered over his finely chiselled contours and sleek bare ankles just visible above the soft moccasins that covered his feet.
As he got closer, she saw strange elegant tattoos on his arms that flowed over and around the ghostly lines of vicious looking scars. His face was hidden by a hood that was attached to the vest, and he kept his head bowed.
“Don’t be afraid,” he said, stopping a respectful distance from her. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
Simone balled her hands into fists and planted both feet firmly on the floor. She’d done a self-defence course quite a while ago, but she didn’t favor her chances if she had to fight him off. It was best to keep his talking and figure out what the hell was going on.
“Who are you?” she demanded again.
“My name is Storm Kar,” the man said. “I am your friend.”
“I have enough friends already!” Simone retorted, “And they are all pains in the ass. I don’t need any more!”
“Please, Simone, you are distraught,” Storm Kar said, raising his hands in a calming gesture. “I will explain everything. You must calm yourself.”
“How do you know my name?” Simone yelled his move to calm her having the opposite effect. “What is this place?”
Her eyes fixed on the open doorway behind him, and instinct screamed at her to run.
“I will explain everything,” Storm Kar said softly, edging closer. “You don’t know how long I have waited for this moment,” he added, the ache of desire clear in his deep voice. He lifted his head a little and she suddenly saw two burning red orbs that served as his eyes.
Simone let out a strangled gasp and her body tensed. This Storm Kar, whatever he was, was not human. Without a second thought, she bolted for the still open door. As she shot past him, he lashed out and grabbed her arm pulling her back.
“Get off me!” she yelled and her hand went up to his hood. As she struggled to break free, she pulled the covering clear off his head, revealing his face underneath.
For a split-second, both of them froze in place as Simone stared at his features. Eyes of burning red stared down at her, set in a fearsome snarling visage, terribly scarred and almost feline.
His long hair was jet black with a streak of white running through it, and from which protruded cat-like ears. His mouth hung open, revealing long canine fangs and he suddenly looked away from her, loosening his grip in the process.
Simone’s brain kicked back into life, and fighting against confusion and terror, she pulled away from him and made for the doorway again.
He didn’t stop her this time, and she plunged down the long triangular shaped corridor beyond. It was made of quartz, like the room she’d woken up in, and cubes of shining yellow crystal were set into the walls providing her light to see her way.
Directly ahead of her was another pair of thick crystal doors and to her relief they stood open allowing passage through the wide archway beyond. With no real plan of what she was doing, save to get as far away from that beast as possible, she drove toward the archway and rushed through it.
The sight on the other side made her stop dead in h
er tracks. She stared ahead of her, completely at a loss what to do next.
The archway opened onto a wide, spacious balcony overlooking the world outside the strange building. During her conversation with the monstrous Storm Kar, she had hoped and assumed that she was still in the nature reserve.
If she could get to freedom she had intended to try and find her way back to the lake and the waiting pick-up truck. Now she was on the balcony, that strategy turned to dust.
She was high up in the structure, far too high to jump down to the ground, and even if she could she wouldn’t dare. The landscape she was looking at was like nothing she’d ever seen before in her life.
Beneath an aquamarine sky, a huge undulating forest spread out before her, consisting of thousands of balloon shaped ‘trees’ the color of cinnabar. Each of these trees had rudimentary faces emerging from their boles and their branches were like sinuous antlers of sparking diamond.
The diamond branches swayed rhythmically, and from the trees’ elongated mouths came a wordless melody that caressed Simone’s ears. It was without doubt the sweetest, gentlest sound she’d ever heard, a calming lullaby that draped like silk upon the air.
Amidst these singing trees, she spotted spindly, long-legged creatures as tall as an apartment block, ambling serenely around. They seemed to be carved from an inorganic purplish mineral and their tiny faces were incredibly wrinkled. Two stubby arms jutted from the sides of their craggy heads to complete their strange appearance.
One of the creatures was strolling close to the balcony and paused to look up at her. It was smoking a long clay pipe, and as its beetle black eyes met hers, it gave her a wide toothless grin along with a friendly wave.
Simone backed away, her mind reeling. “I’m hallucinating,” she murmured numbly to herself. “I must be! This is just a dream! It’s just a dream!”