Alien Shifter Force: A SciFi Alien Shifter Romance

by Maya Kane

  He sighed and stared into the late evening sky. It was almost dusk now. The last glow of earth’s sun hung on the edge of the world. All was silent—he knew that meant that fighting hadn’t broken out between his men and the humans. He felt fuzzy and mentally weak, even in his Dreon state. He would have identified it as a fever if it wasn't for the constant thrum of desire in his veins.

  “You anxious,” she whispered peering at him. Her soft fingertips traced circles on his cheeks, hesitating when they came close to the ridges that throbbed for her.

  Every touch sent sparks to his shaft. “Yes. Unknowns.”

  She nodded. “All around. Invaders.”

  He smiled.

  “Aerial. Robotics.”

  Redon’s smile vanished. With every mispronounced or mistranslated word, hope died in him a little. How could he possibly explain the truth to her if they were incapable of discussing even the most basic facts about their situation?

  She seemed to sense the turmoil in his mind.

  “No talk,” she whispered, her blue eyes lighting up as she said it. Her lips parted.

  Redon watched in amazement as she leaned closer to him, moving so slowly that he was almost sure he was imagining it or that it was a trick of the light. He held his breath as her pink lips brushed against his, setting off explosions of desire in his body.

  She laughed softly.

  “What amuse you?” he whispered, hooked now. He reached his fingers into her thick black hair and pulled her gently to him. He hungered for her now. That one taste of her had hooked him.

  She shook her head, a smile still lingering on her lips. She stared into his eyes. If he hadn’t been paying close attention, he might have missed the way her eyes flitted to his swollen shaft.

  He nodded knowingly. “Desire.”

  “Yes,” she said in her soft, whispery voice. “Desire.”

  Chapter 13

  Kate’s heart vibrated in her chest, a constant buzz of stress and adrenaline and…

  She shook her head. There was something else; something she couldn’t deny or ignore any longer.

  This is madness. I spent two years in space. Two whole years and I didn’t desire one of the guys on the ship. Even Trent with his tattoos and dangerously hot body. And now this alien?

  She squeezed her eyes closed. She was tired of thinking: it was exhausting. When she opened them, Redon was staring at her with a look that told her he felt exactly the same way as she did.

  As if drawn to him by a magnetic force, she shuffled closer to him until her face was only inches from his. She liked the way he was completely unmoving even though she had pushed against him with all of her strength. He was huge and strong and brutish and alien—and she couldn’t wait any longer.

  Her eyes fluttered shut as she closed the distance between them and kissed him, marveling at the softness of his lips despite his armored skin. Her gaze wandered downward and she laughed nervously at the sight of him.

  She had known he was big, but that was from a distance. Now, skin-to-skin, she saw the true size of him. She saw that his shaft was lined with the same ridges as he had on his temples. She wondered what they were for and shivered. It didn’t take her long to come up with a theory about what they might achieve when combined with willing human skin.

  She realized she was staring at him the same moment he buried his fingers in her hair and pulled her to him. She had to work hard not to gasp—the gesture aroused her: it was so possessive, so dominant. Kate was used to remaining in control at all times, but now she craved Redon’s dominance—just for an interlude; a flirtatious dance of heat and ecstasy and—

  “What amuse you?”

  Kate shook her head, resisting the urge to laugh again. How on earth was she supposed to tell him what she was feeling? It wasn’t that she was embarrassed—it felt like the most natural thing in the world, to want him. She simply didn’t have the vocabulary. She glanced down at him, still hard and bulging with strange veins. Kate had to fight the urge to reach down and touch him. She was fixated on those ridges and the veins—what might they set off in her?

  She stared into his eyes. He nodded.

  “Desire,” he said thickly.

  Kate’s pulse raced faster than it ever had before, even when faced with perilous danger. “Yes. Desire,” she nodded.

  “Redon,” she whispered, shifting her weight and positioning herself so she straddled his thick, strong thighs.

  She didn’t know what had come over her. She buzzed with need for him. He was all she could think of, even though she had just gone AWOL from the force that had been her life since she was barely more than a teenager. But it was all Redon.

  “Kate,” he rumbled in his strange accent.

  He buried his hands in her hair as she moved closer to him, rocking against him in a way that was both dangerous and completely irresistible.

  A familiar noise was suddenly all around them. Kate looked up. Golden eyes glinted back at her in the near darkness. They were on the ground a moment later. A few seconds after that and she was surrounded by a semi-circle of Dreon. She looked from them to Redon. She wasn’t scared; no, if anything she was frustrated. If it hadn’t been for Athena and Danni, she might have told the other Dreon to go away and come back in a half hour. She shook her head. Or maybe two hours, just to be on the safe side. She shivered with frustration.

  This almost dying thing has really affected my behavior, she thought, as Redon and the other Dreon spoke to each other in their guttural language.

  Finally, they turned to her.

  Aron spoke rapidly in Uniton.

  Kate shook her head sheepishly. “I’m sorry. I only caught every fourth word of that,” she said in English. It didn’t help that she’d been driven to distraction by his commander, she reasoned. How on earth was she supposed to function after that? She fought through the distracted layers of her brain to find an appropriate response in Uniton. “No understand.”

  He nodded. “I apologize. I bring word from Athena.”

  Kate gasped. “Is okay? I thought safe. Mandarins.”

  Aron frowned before carrying on slowly. “They were unharmed. Decided to join us.”

  Kate bit her lip trying to figure out the words she needed. “What is the…” she shook her head. It was impossible to try and communicate in an unfamiliar language, especially in such a critical situation as the one they faced. It didn’t help that she was more aroused than she had ever been. “What are we going to do? We can’t all just go AWOL. There are consequences,” she said in English.

  Aron shook his head. “I do not know your language.”

  Kate clenched her fists, frustrated at her inability to communicate and by her unfulfilled desire.

  “Come,” Aron said calmly. “We will go back to Athena. Between us, we can translate.”

  Kate nodded, wishing she could speak as much Uniton as she could understand. Which still wasn’t a lot—Athena always had to speak in a slow and patient voice for her to even understand.

  “Okay,” Aron nodded. “I will carry you there,” he said, moving closer to her.

  Kate backed away, shaking her head. “No. Want go him,” she nodded toward Redon.

  She knew she was being childish, but she also didn’t care. It could be the end of the world, she reasoned. Now wasn’t the time to act coy and hard-to-get. And she had decided one thing—she was going to experience that humongous cock before she said goodbye to the universe.

  To her surprise, Redon turned and walked to her, placing his hands on her shoulders and immediately sending explosions rocketing through her body.

  “With him.”

  “Why?” she whispered.

  “He is—” Aron started to say before Redon interrupted him.

  He looked deep into her eyes and Kate saw her own hunger reflected.

  “Must go Aron. Unsafe. I… I… affected.”

  She had no idea what he was talking about, but he seemed so worried by it that she relented.


  ***

  The flight across the desert in the near-darkness was a rush, but it felt empty for Kate. Redon had flown on ahead and she could just make him out in the distance, larger and more majestic than all of the other Dreon. Kate felt sure she didn’t think that just because she wanted him so desperately. He had a natural sense of authority that wasn’t undermined by his lack of Uniton or the fact that he had almost fallen out of the sky.

  Kate closed her eyes. The thought of that happening again filled her with fear. She looked at Aron in the darkness. His dragon form was different to Redon’s. He was smaller; less fierce. Sure, she felt safe with him, but it was different with Redon. For reasons she didn’t understand, she felt safe with him. Complete. She shook her head. It made no sense. And yet it somehow made perfect sense.

  ***

  Soon, they were landing. It was dark by then, but Kate could tell from the lights in the distance that they were at the Dreon ship. She followed the Dreon into the hulking craft. A dim light shone from the inside causing her to panic. Had they repaired the damage? Did that mean they were going go back to Dreon?

  They walked on in darkness until they turned a corner and emerged into a bright open space. Kate looked around in confusion. It was difficult to believe they were on an alien spacecraft. It could have been somebody’s living room.

  Redon must have seen her confusion. He muttered something to Aron, who said something in Uniton. Kate was about to tell him that she didn’t understand, when Athena emerged from the shadows.

  “Athena,” Kate gasped, rushing forward.

  Athena smiled and opened her arms. “Aron says it’s a rec room of sorts. Their ship has a rec room because their voyages are so long. Luckily for us. They also have enough spare cabins for us to sleep in if we need to stay here.”

  Kate nodded, anxiously taking in her friend’s demeanor. “Are you okay? You didn’t have to leave because of me. Did they hurt you?”

  Athena shook her head. “No. I didn’t leave because of you. I left before I also think we should do something instead of waiting for the invaders. Don’t worry.”

  “You’re okay?”

  Athena nodded. “We went back to the library after all the chaos with you and Redon. We waited a while and then snuck out. Aron was waiting for us.”

  Kate bit her lip. “They were really going crazy, huh?”

  Athena nodded. “Yeah, well. I think most of the troops at the base don’t know what to think. Nobody else said anything about wanting to leave, but I could tell from their faces that they weren’t happy about doing nothing.”

  “It didn’t stop them from taking me into custody.”

  Athena rubbed her arm. “Don’t think about it like that. They’re just afraid for their own lives. You know how hard it is to disobey direct orders even if you know you’re doing the right thing.”

  “Won’t they come after us?” Kate asked anxiously.

  Athena snorted. “Really? After what happened earlier when Redon thought they were going to hurt you? Kate, they’ve seen what these Dreon can do. I doubt we’ll hear from them again until all of this is over.”

  Her words felt like knives to Kate’s heart. “What? How are we supposed to fight an unknown enemy? It’s just the three of us and the Dreon. I don’t even know how many fighters they have or if they’re sticking around. It looks like they’ve made progress fixing their ship.”

  Athena shrugged. “It was always going to be that way. Did you really think you’d change the commander’s mind? And I wouldn’t worry that the Dreon are going to just fly away. Aron said it’s going to take days for their engineer to make the repairs needed. That’s if he can do it at all.”

  Kate looked around as she fought to get her thoughts in order. The benefit of being in a chain of command had been the routine of orders and procedures. Now? Now they were in an area so gray it had probably never been experienced by a group of human soldiers before.

  She noticed that Aron was hovering close behind them with an impatient look on his face.

  “Um, I think he wants to speak to you,” she whispered.

  Athena turned to the Dreon and he immediately burst into a volley of Uniton. Kate smiled and crossed the room, rolling her eyes when she caught Redon’s eye.

  “Studious,” she said, nodding back toward Aron and Athena, who were already deep in conversation.

  He smiled. “Yes. We fortunate.”

  Kate was still basking in the knowledge that she and Redon had shared a joke when she turned around. Seeing the look on Athena’s face brought her crashing back to earth.

  “What is it?” she whispered.

  Athena looked at Aron, who nodded. “We need to move,” Athena said carefully. “We can’t be like the rest of the unit. That defeats the purpose of going AWOL. We decide on a plan tonight and leave tomorrow.”

  Chapter 14

  Redon couldn’t help but smile despite the gravity of the situation. His female had noticed it too—the chemistry between Aron and Athena. They had shared a moment of understanding despite their lack of a common language. He focused on that as they filed into the strategy room. Once they were all seated, Aron and Athena conversed in rapid Uniton. He could only catch a word here and there. Kate’s level of Uniton was the same, if her bewildered face was anything to go by.

  Unlike Kate, though, Redon knew exactly what they were speaking of. It concerned him and the recent physical symptoms he had been experiencing.

  He wanted to groan. They may have been destined for each other, but it wasn’t supposed to be like this; so clinical. In a few short minutes, Athena would describe to Kate exactly what needed to happen in order to cure his symptoms. And just like that, he was convinced, the magic between them would be broken. He watched her, staring at the others. His stomach lurched.

  Finally, Aron stopped talking. Athena nodded and cleared her throat, before looking back at Kate.

  “Let’s get this over with,” Redon barked at Aron.

  His deputy wouldn’t meet his eyes. “This is the way it must be.”

  Redon sensed his guilt. Of course Aron knew exactly how he was feeling. He had felt the mating call long ago. Now, here was his oldest friend with his other mere feet away from him. But circumstances dictated that they must mate in the most clinical manner possible. As soon as possible.

  He groaned as Athena began to speak. He made his features as impassive as possible, forcing himself to keep his eyes on Kate. It didn’t look good. Her eyes were wide as she listened to the other human. Every now and then she gasped or groaned or rubbed her hand over her eyes.

  And then Redon couldn’t stand it anymore. He hated this. He had thought for many years that he didn’t want a mate. And then one was thrust into his life at the worst possible moment when he and his crew needed to fight for survival.

  We still need to fight for survival. We must fight tonight. He rose from his chair and clenched his jaw.

  “Stop this foolishness, Aron. I will fly. I fought it earlier and I will fight it again.”

  “But, Sir,” Aron pleaded. “This is the only way. If you mate, you’ll be cured. You’ll be as strong as ever and there won’t be a risk of your ability to transform failing at a crucial moment. If you don’t go through with this, you risk your life. And the lives of others. We need you.”

  Redon shook his head. He knew all of that; knew it deep down. But his heart screamed at him to leave. “I need some time to think,” he growled. “Don’t follow.”

  Redon marched out of the room and along the corridor. His jaw worked furiously as he moved. Aron didn’t follow him—he knew Redon well enough to leave him alone if he was this agitated, which didn’t happen often. It didn’t ever happen, Redon thought.

  He reached his cabin and slammed the door closed behind him, relieved to be alone. He threw himself down on his recliner and stared up at the ceiling. The lights from the human base illuminated the space just enough for him to see the veins of the communication system running through the l
atticed ceiling. He shook his head.

  He knew what needed to be done. She knew it too. But that didn’t stop it from feeling wrong; like a wasted opportunity or a case of extremely bad timing. And it wasn’t that he wouldn’t relish the feel of her soft skin under his.

  “This is all wrong,” he muttered, cursing the moment they crashed.

  Chapter 15

  “So,” Athena said, glancing from Kate to Redon.

  Kate could see the nervousness in her eyes. “What is it?” she asked, mystified.

  She had stared at Aron and Athena half-interested, zoning in and out of what they were saying. She’d been thankful to have the excuse of limited Uniton—if anyone had known the truth then they would have been horrified that she’d been fantasizing about Redon when she should have been focusing all of her attention on the mission at hand.

  “So,” Athena said again, tearing Kate out of her latest guilt trip. “Aron has filled me in on a lot of things. He kind of alluded to them earlier but I didn’t have a chance to tell you because you’d shot off into the sunset with Redon over there.”

  Kate rolled her eyes. “What, no jokes about his massive dick this time?”

  Athena didn’t laugh. She didn’t even crack a smile, which was most unlike her.

  On the other side of the table, Danni caught on to the strange atmosphere between them. “What is it, Athena?”

  Athena shook her head, eyes widening. “This is a decision we take together, guys, okay? I’m not going to pressure anyone into doing anything.”

  Kate frowned. “What? Come on. We’ve already decided that we’re leaving the unit and teaming up with the Dreon. It’s done. We can relax. Well, until we come face-to-face with whatever’s been attacking our cities and bases.”

  “Uh-huh,” Athena said shaking her head. “Nope. There’s something else. Another complicating factor—as if we needed more of those.”