Highlander's Love: Winter Solestice (Against All Odds Series 3)

by Veronica Wilson

  At least, not until recently.

  Just the day before, James had finally shared his real name. It was long and difficult to pronounce, but after several minutes of failed attempts Jasmine had finally managed to get it right: Jha’reedan Vaezz’t. A couple of times she tried to refer to him like that, but it turned out he preferred his assumed identity instead. Other information that managed to get through that powerful screen he kept up, however, did not seem particularly good.

  The “great race,” as he called them, were proud, inquisitive, and petty, not unlike humanity, and James was at times concerned about what they’d do when they realized that one of their best scouts was gone.

  From time to time Jasmine found herself thinking about that question herself, but she’d quickly snap right back and enjoy what was in front of her. After all, the life she used to lead back down on Earth was not worth living, while what the two of them had built, here in this fast little spacecraft, was simply perfect.

  And for the right person, the woman mused as she turned away from the stellar spectacle, no sacrifice is too great.

  THE END

  My Alien Abductor

  Gasping for breath, the young woman contorted into a sitting position.

  Her awareness of her surroundings still hazy and unreliable, she tried taking a look around, but it was futile. Everything she tried to lay her eyes on was blurry. Even so, it was apparent that wherever she had found herself, it was someplace new.

  Heart racing and temples pulsating, she turned her attention to herself instead. Placing her hand in front of her face, she tried flexing her fingers and was barely able to feel any motion. Her vision now slightly sharper, at least up close, she noticed something she did not expect: her fingers, hand, and the rest of her arm had been placed inside some strange, tight-fitting glove.

  It does not seem to end with my arm. Swiftly, she directed her gaze toward her legs and abdomen, struggling all the while to keep everything in focus. A couple of seconds later, it was certain that she was right: her whole body was covered with the material. It was black, stretchy yet strong, and strangely comfortable.

  Was this thing fitted for me? Though disturbing, the thought seemed to have been right on the mark. The bodysuit was tight where it needed to be and featured properly sized pockets for every protrusion, be those fingers or feminine curves.

  Mary Anne, you stupid, immature brat! What have you gotten yourself into this time? She tried to conjure forth memories, but flinched at the intense headache that invoked.

  Alright, I guess that’ll have to wait. Her vision now completely recovered, Mary Anne decided to focus on the strange room instead. It was smooth, like the inside of a slightly bent sphere. The walls and everything else were the color of freshly polished chrome. The furniture, appliances—or whatever they were supposed to be—appeared as if they had sprouted from the floor itself. Some of them, like the bed she had awoken in, were recognizable for what they were. Other objects, like the bizarre multi-limbed contraption in the shape of a freshwater hydra, easily defied any categorization.

  The hydra. A disgusting creature, Mary Anne recalled, but the animal itself was not as important as another fact. The device had reminded her of one of the many things that Miss Paulson taught in her biology class.

  The same Miss Paulson who disappeared without a trace, some eight months ago. She shuddered, the insides of her lower stomach contracting at the thought. Is this what happened to her? Have I disappeared without a trace as well?

  The lingering sensation in the back of Mary Anne’s head; the very same memories that she had decided to keep at bay due to the significant pain they caused, now exploded. Images, sounds, sensations, the whole jumbled lot expanded inside her mind, threatening t0 crush it under the immense weight of its own incoherence. Pressing on her temples with the palms of her hands, Mary Anne screamed, the entire room spinning around her shivering body. The sound she made, however, she did not hear, for her consciousness had gone somewhere else.

  Yesterday

  It was nighttime. Or very early in the morning, depending on your point of view.

  Mary Anne was back in her hometown of Wayward, a backwater little place located somewhere within the less civilized parts of the United States. She had just left the house of her best (and only) friend Andy, after their traditional horror movie marathon.

  They don’t make them like they used to, she concluded while musing on a scene from one of the films—the moon was up in the sky, just like it is now. It was full, and coldly beautiful. The clear white orb stared back into her eyes, welcoming her presence as it had so many times before. If only I could sit down and talk to it… who knows what stories it could tell…

  One step at a time, she paced toward her home, a rather droll place she lamentably had to share with her parents. Suddenly, she felt something dragging at her coat. Startled, Mary Anne turned around, ready to kick whoever it was right in the ‘nads. However, that turned out to be an overreaction, for it was nothing more than a large bush that had caught her overly long garment.

  I’ll have to remind the… whoever it is that lives here to take better care of their plants. Carefully, she freed her coat from the grasp of the overgrown plant, taking special attention not to damage it. Once it was loose, Mary Anne ran her gloved fingers over its smooth fabric once before letting it dangle by her fishnet-covered legs.

  Clothes like this don’t come cheap in these parts, she reminded herself, standing in front of the house whose owners she could not remember, staring down at her own body. A short, intentionally ragged black dress; a pair of high-heeled boots in the same color; and a decorative corset. Getting that stuff in Wayward was not easy, even nowadays.

  Do you have to be like that? Mary Anne could hear her father’s voice echoing within her head, saying what he usually would. The others are talking, you know? Her mother always followed along shortly, not deviating from her predictable behavior. They were always the same, and so horribly boring.

  It will be difficult for me to marry some local shmuck if everybody thinks I’m a Satanist or a lesbian, right? Good. She stared into the window of the house again, realizing that the identities of its occupants didn’t interest her in the least. Best of all, it didn’t bother her at all that she didn’t care.

  Angry at herself for spoiling the wonderful mood she’d had going, Mary Anne resumed her walk home. But the train of thought she had embarked on earlier didn’t let her off the hook as easily as she’d have liked. Ever since she could remember, Mary Anne had been an outsider. Boys, girls, adults—everyone looked at her as if something was wrong, and it only got worse with age. By the time she had graduated high school she had turned into a cynical, albeit beautiful, girl, whose cutting tongue didn’t let anyone near.

  And I wouldn’t have it any other way. The Christian teaching of “turning the other cheek” having found no ground within her, Mary Anne was perfectly willing to respond in kind. Her parents, however, would have none of it, having expected their little girl to get married, or at the very least betrothed, well before that time.

  Still, I didn’t think they’d go that far with their Stone Age way of thinking... Their reprisal had come without warning. One day the people who were responsible for Mary Anne’s presence in the world had decided that she was not to be allowed to go to college.

  “You are an embarrassment, young lady!” her father had bellowed the loudest he could. “The people laugh behind our backs every day, all because of your stubbornness! You act as if something is wrong with you, and you do it on purpose! And don’t get me started on that appearance you maintain! Fine! Do as you wish, Mary Anne. Don’t act as if I am preventing you from being yourself, as you insist on calling this mockery. Do not, however, expect to get any support from us for as long as you insist on maintaining this ridiculous attitude. I will not release a crazy girl into the world. Understand?”

  That monologue had been far more significant than it initially seemed. First off, Mary
Anne’s funds were drastically reduced, limiting her ability to shop and outright preventing her from leaving the town. Second, her father had proclaimed that, until she proved that she was capable of forming and keeping a serious relationship with a man, her family would not support the rest of her schooling.

  Friendless, unpopular, and deprived of money, they had thought that she’d relent. Instead, all that happened was that Mary Anne became even bitterer than before. And the couple of years that had passed since then had not done much for her wellbeing as she became increasingly desperate for some sort of friendship.

  That position was filled by Andy. Always a bit of a slow learner, the youth was every bit as dull as most of the town’s younger (and older) population. What he had going for him, though, was a rather good heart, which made him a tolerable candidate for the position of Mary Anne’s only friend.

  It went slowly, their first few meetings mostly consisting of the young man’s attempts to get into her panties. Mary Anne’s parents were so glad by that development that they even considered increasing her allowance. But they were glad that they hadn’t when it turned out that her interest in Andy was purely platonic.

  It took some time, patience, and effort but finally, after several long months of direction, she had finally managed to place him right where she wanted him: the far reaches of the friend zone. It was a mutually beneficial relationship—Mary Anne would have the company of another, non-venomous person, and Andy would get the chance to expand his little mind, to whatever degree that was possible. Horror movie night was the strongest tradition of their two-year-long friendship, occurring once every week in the dead of the night (or morning).

  This isn’t a solution, though. Mary Anne didn’t need to articulate that to know that it was true. Making the situation tolerable was not the same as sewing up a wound; it was much more akin to a common Band-Aid.

  Horror movie night and the occasional midnight stroll isn’t going to cut it for any longer, I’m afraid. She could feel it. The longing for something new, something different, kept on consuming more and more of her recent thoughts. If I don’t solve my problem soon, there’s no telling what I might do…

  Suddenly, she froze, her current line of thought interrupted by something that she couldn’t quite make out. It was next to her house right along the way, less than fifty feet in front of her. It had the shape of a single, moving orb of light, less than an inch in diameter and followed closely by an unusual blur. Right at the moment she noticed it, it stopped moving—the blur disappearing but the orb still blatantly visible, staring at her without making a single motion.

  What the hell is that? She wanted to check it out, her curiosity piqued by the unusual sight. But flashbacks from the movies soon took over, sending Mary Anne into fight-or-flight mode. Breathing in deeply, she turned around, taking one more look at the still-present glowing little circle before she tensed every muscle in her body and ran in the opposite direction.

  Her breathing getting faster and faster and her footwork following closely, Mary Anne got to the edge of the neighborhood within less than a minute. Turning around the sharp corner, she pressed herself toward the wall, doing her best to stabilize her breathing while remaining as silent as possible. Her vision was blurring, the ground beneath her appearing less flat and stable—a clear indication that the pace of her breathing was not sufficient.

  Better to feel bad for a few minutes than get caught by whatever that was. Suddenly, Mary Anne felt foolish. Whatever that was? The idea seemed beyond silly. While it was possible that she had indeed seen something, the far more likely scenario was that she was simply tired and seeing things. It seems I was right. I am losing my mind out here.

  Carefully, Mary Anne crept closer to the edge of the wall at her back, peeking behind it while hoping with all of her being that she was indeed going insane.

  Nothing was there. I think I might be the first person in the world to actually feel relieved to be hallucinating.

  A moment later, there was a thump. The dull, heavy sound came from right in front of her.

  Please tell me that it’s not real.

  Shivering, her lungs now hurting from both stress and lack of air, Mary Anne turned her gaze back to the front and immediately wished that she hadn’t. Standing in front of her was a swirling, expanding mass of inky blackness, grotesquely positioned around a glowing white orb. In less than a second the thing shifted between several different colors, finally settling on an unusual variant of polished chrome.

  Please tell me that I have simply snapped.

  With the thing’s shape now easily discernible, Mary Anne’s mouth instantly went dry. The sight before her dwarfed that from any sci-fi film: a towering, bipedal mass of metal. The thing was humanoid, somewhat similar to a mixture between a human being and a large cat, standing on digitigrade legs. But its head was something altogether different—somewhat elongated and devoid of any feature other than a single, glowing eye.

  The metallic creature had spent barely more than a second in its visible mode before it started emanating an unpleasant, dull buzzing, a sound that became less and less bearable with each agonizing moment. Following suit, the white light became more and more intense, finally culminating in a single brilliant flash of light.

  And then there was nothing.

  Now

  Out of air, Mary Anne still held her head with the palms of her hands. She was trying to produce a scream that she no longer needed, the pain having ended a good while ago. But the shock to her system was so great that her mind was still lagging behind her body. Shivering all over, from her fingers down to her toes, she forced herself to inhale mere moments before what felt like another unconscious episode in the making.

  She was still in the chrome room, still wearing that tight, disturbingly well-proportioned bodysuit. Nothing had changed while she had been remembering the events leading up to now, except for the presence of a barely audible metallic sound coming from outside the room.

  And it was getting closer.

  Barely in control of herself, Mary Anne did not even have the time to try to hide before a nearby wall opened up, changing its shape in a way that appeared almost organic. The light on the other side was intense, whiter than anything she had ever seen, making her attempts to see anything through it completely futile. By the time the makeshift door had turned back into a wall, the room had been graced by the presence of a handsome new arrival.

  Well, hello there. Mary Anne was tired, scared out of her mind, and completely numb, yet the stranger was so good-looking that he somehow managed to make her feel better. His body was statuesque, easily six-foot-two, incredibly well-sculpted, and decorated with perfectly positioned and shaped muscles. His skin color was bronzed, as if he had spent just the right amount of time under a tanning booth. His face, though, did not betray any discernible ethnic qualities, possessing straight and chiseled features that were indicative of western descent. This dazzling display of the masculine ideal was crowned with a full head of closely cropped blond hair, completing his unique appearance.

  What is that stuff that he’s wearing? Mary Anne was just about to note the new arrival’s choice of garments (something that seemed more at home within the sarcophagus of an ancient Egyptian mummy) when another detail caught her attention—the stranger’s eyes. They were completely devoid of whites, colored exclusively in a deep shade of blue. Like a pair of light bulbs, the two orbs glowed intensely, stripping his appearance of any pretense of humanity.

  “Greetings, Miss Mary Anne Burns.” Mary Anne had barely managed to gather all her thoughts by the time he spoke. His voice was powerful, the bass echoing throughout the room. “First of all, I would like to apologize for any inconvenience you might have experienced while my ch’orrd was escorting you here. Their equipment was primarily tuned to our physiology, so I’m afraid the experience might be somewhat unpleasant when used on a human such as you.”

  Such as you, he says? You have got to be kidding me. Eyes wid
e and mouth agape, all Mary Anne could do was stare at the statuesque individual, the splendor of his appearance causing the strength to gradually return to her body.

  “I am certain that you are wondering why you are here.” He took a confident step forward, closely followed by another. “The answer to that is complex, but it begins with my identity.”

  Posing dramatically, arms spread at his sides, the stranger stopped a mere three feet from the bed-thing that Mary Anne still sat on. “Know that I am Har’kreen Zoracht, Garoh of the Ishadrah. In your language, that would make me something akin to a lord of an expeditionary force. In this case, however, the force is extraterrestrial in origin. Are you following all of this?” He stared into her with those deep blue eyes, devoid of whites as well as humanity, causing a torrent of mixed emotions to swirl around her previously tormented underbelly.

  Is this guy saying that he’s an alien? So far outside her comfort zone, Mary Anne almost burst into laughter. But her survival instinct prevented that from happening. She was held prisoner in a chrome room, by a… Garoh (whatever that was) who was clearly well-mannered in an archaic way. Everything about the situation seemed off, and she became more and more determined to get to the bottom of it with each passing moment.

  “So, Garooo-“

  “Garoh,” he corrected her immediately, having visibly put quite some effort into not taking the mistake as a personal insult.

  “Garoh, okay.” Mary Anne ran her gloved fingers through her hair, in a thinly disguised effort to buy herself a bit more time to process this whole mess. “That is your title, something like an equivalent of the lords we used to have on earth, right?”

  “As much as an actual queen is something like an equivalent to the bloated little things that direct the colonies of some of your own indigenous creatures. You know the ones I mean?”

  “Insects,” she replied, unable to divert her gaze from that of the alien. “But let’s not change the subject yet, please. Your name is… Harkreen… Zoracht. Right?” Biting her cheek from the inside, Mary Anne hoped that she had pronounced it right. The expression on the Garoh’s face, luckily, indicated that he was at least slightly pleased.