There’s silence for a moment, then Brad clears his throat.
“Yes, you’re right, Jenna. It appears that the authorities have received a message from the kidnappers that states they will go after any and all women who feel the need to leave Earth to get some alien cock shoved up their… ah, I said too much, didn’t I?”
Brad sounds nervous and upset, and Jenna says nothing.
Isabella turns off the radio. “We’ve had peace for the most part since the war, a peace that Earth has never known. Not entirely, not every place. But now… Can you imagine? The kidnappers—if there is a group or just one… I just can’t understand this. I can’t accept this. This is wrong on so many levels.”
A level of fury I’ve never felt washes over me. This woman, Nina Tristin, deserves to live her life the way she chooses to. No one should dictate her life for her.
“We have to do something,” I say firmly.
Isabella wipes her tears away. “I was hoping you would want to help me.”
I smirk. “You wouldn’t dare even attempt to try to save her without me.”
“Why? Because you think I would fail if I tried without you?”
“Because you need someone to cover your ass.”
“Hands off until we find her,” she warns.
“I wasn’t being sexual,” I protest.
“I know.” She hesitates. “Thank you, Strol.”
I snort. “You don’t have to thank me.”
“No. I do.”
I want to ask what specifically she’s thanking me for, but I have a feeling that’s a loaded question. For now, I just nod and rub my hands together.
"We need to figure out how to save her."
“Yes, we do.”
14
Isabella
“What all do we know about Nina?” Strol asks.
“Just what we heard on the radio.”
“Hmm. Do we have a way to find out where she lives?” he asks.
“I’m sure I can hunt down her address. You think we should talk to her family?”
“Yes.”
“Might be easier just to call them,” I point out. “Quicker. We have no idea where she lives.”
“Yes, but I think they might be more willing to talk to us if we talk to them in person.”
I narrow my eyes. “Why?”
He holds up his arm.
His skin.
He’s a Kurian.
“You think they’ll talk to you?” I ask dubiously.
“I don’t particularly want to talk to the authorities,” he says.
“Why is that?”
“Because of why I’m on Earth.”
My breathing hitches. “Why are you on Earth?” I ask as evenly as I can.
“Because I… I was too much of a daredevil.”
I narrow my eyes. “Why does that mean you need to be on Earth? Are you banished from Kuria?”
“For the time being at least.”
“Why?” I blurt out. Has he done something so wild and outrageous that someone died? Is this punishment of some kind? Just who is Strol?
“My father can’t handle me,” he says calmly. “You might have heard about him. Nestrol.”
“The overlord,” I blurt out. “Of course you’re his son. Nestrol. Strol. How did I not realize that before?”
“He couldn’t handle me. I was too wild. My actions… I did a stupid dare—”
“As in truth or dare?” I interrupt.
“Yes.” He laughs. “An Earthling thing, I know, but it’s fun. Have you ever played?”
“Yes, but it might as well just be called Dare because who ever picks truth?”
“Well, my sister dared me to kill an animal. I caused a stampede that caused a flood.”
“Wow. When you screw things up, you do it with style. I’ll tell you that much.”
Strol grimaces.
“And so you’ve been here, and you can’t see your mom or your sister. Have you talked to them any?”
“No.”
“Why not? Or has your father forbidden it?”
He exhales. “I don’t know, but I have to say that I just want to focus on saving Nina right now.”
“O-Of course.”
“And as much as I would like to think the authorities would be willing to work with us, I doubt that will be the case.”
“Between the flying and your father.”
“Yes. I was supposed to submit myself to them as soon as I arrived.”
“But you didn’t, did you?”
“No. On the spaceship that brought me here, I saw a woman climbing the mountain. I thought it looked like fun, so I opted to climb the mountain and thought I might find her.”
“Was the woman anything like you expected?” I ask.
“So much more than I expected.”
“Hmm. In a good way or not so good way?”
“In all the best kinds of ways,” he assures me, “but we need to try to find Nina.”
"Of course." I grimace and shake my head. He really does make me forget and lost sight of everything else aside from him.
I drive us into town and seek out the library. From there, I locate Nina's address. There are several articles written about the case already, and I make a note of her friends' names and their addresses too, just in case.
It’s a five-hour drive over to Nina’s house, but we opt to take a flight over, which is only one hour. We’re not hailed this time, which surprises me given what’s going on with Nina, but maybe they’re too focused on finding her to care.
As I suspected, there are all kinds of people outside of Nina's house. She's eighteen years old, so she still lives with her parents, and Strol and I walk a few streets over in the neighborhood to one of her friend's houses. It's empty. No answer. Maybe the friend's at Nina's house.
The neighbor opens her door and peeks out at us.
I cross over to her. “Hi, we were hoping to talk to Georgia Bush. She’s not here, though.”
"No, she went to stay with her parents. They live upstate. Terrible times, I tell you. A real shame about Nina." She hangs her head, her curly white hair not moving an inch. It has so much hairspray, to the point of being likely to catch on fire if someone sneezes.
“I don’t suppose you know much about what happened to Nina, do you?” Strol asks.
“She wanted to go to your planet,” the old woman says, eyeing him. I can’t help noticing that her gaze lingers on his package a bit, which strikes me as hilarious.
“We heard about that on the radio,” I say.
“Yes, well, I know a lot of things,” she says, “and I listen. I watch, and I learn. I don’t drink much, but I go to the bar a lot, and I’ve heard things.”
“What kind of things?” Strol asks.
“Things I don’t want to tell the police.”
“Why?” I ask.
“I’m afraid Nina’s already dead,” the woman says sadly. “Those men… they must have small peckers, the lot of them. They act like there’s a shortage of women, that the women only want alien cocks, that they don’t see how humans can survive if all the women just want blue cocks.” She shrugs. “Pardon my frankness, but that’s what they say. There’s a ringleader of the group. His name is Frankie Hamilton. He lives over on Fifth Avenue, but I’m telling you right now, Nina’s not there. Frankie has a boat. I bet you anything, Frankie, his goon friends, and Nina are on that boat right now.”
“Boat,” I murmur.
The old woman nods. “They’re going to drown her or shoot her and drop her overboard or tie rocks around her ankles and drop her into the water. They’re going to kill her to send a message to all of the women who thought about going to Kuria.”
“We can’t have that,” Strol says firmly. “There are female Kurians, of course—”
“But not enough for all the blue cocks you have.” The old woman purses her lips and pins her gaze on me. “Is all they say true?”
“About…” I ask, baffled.
“That they
have a long pecker and can go for hours at a time and ejaculate many times in a session.”
“Yes,” I say frankly.
“Good for you. Enjoy him. I thought about volunteering after my John passed away, but I was already fifty at the time, and I knew it wouldn’t be long until menopause came around. I didn’t know if I could handle childbirth at that age. As it was, menopause didn’t come until I was fifty-five. I hated the hot flashes, but could you imagine being that old when you gave birth? No. Not for me. I’m just fine, thank you very much. My daughter, though, Josephine, she’s thinking about it, but I am so glad she hasn’t told anyone about that or else she might be targeted next. Mark my words, if Frankie and his goons aren’t stopped, they will find and kill other women. If the girls don’t want them, they’ll make sure that no one else can have them.”
“Thank you,” Strol says. “You stay close to Josephine and keep her safe.”
"I will." The old woman points a gnarled finger at him. "She won't like it, but I was forty when I had her. I'm sixty-two now. She's a darling girl, so beautiful, but she's always wanted something more, you know? I want her to have it, and she's headstrong. She won't appreciate my keeping her close to home for now, but until this blows over, I don't see how I can't." She eyes us. "If you go after them, be careful. They're liable to try to kill you both for attempting to stop them, and they'll want to kill you especially, Bluey. I wouldn't put it past Frankie to cut off your cock and try to ram it down your throat."
“He’s welcome to try,” Strol growls.
I shiver. “Thank you…”
“I’m Kiara. Kiara Jacobson.”
“The name’s Strol,” he says.
“I like Bluey better. Is that all right?”
I grin. "I call him Cocky at times, so I doubt he'll mind that."
“Oh, you’re a girl after my own heart! What’s your name, sweetheart?”
“Isabella.”
“You go on now, Isabella, Bluey. Be careful, though. Please. For my sake.”
We leave her behind, and Strol grins and rubs his hands together. “You were right about coming here.”
“Yes, and now we have to hurry to find them. Should we head to the docks? See if we can borrow a boat?”
“Do you know how to use a boat?”
“No. Do you?”
“We don’t have boats on Kuria,” he says.
“Ah, right.”
“We can fly over.”
“With the plane? I don’t know,” I say doubtfully.
“The guns don’t work, but Frankie won’t know that. All we have to do is scare him into giving up Nina.”
“That’s really risky, and can we fly lower enough to be able to save her if they are willing to give her up?”
“I can try.”
“So risky,” I murmur.
“Do you have another idea? We could tell the police.”
I grimace. “I’m worried that the police will go in guns ablazin’ and get Nina killed in the process.”
“A show of force might be the best way,” he says.
“And if they call our bluff?”
“We don’t have to be completely unarmed.”
“Do you have weapons?”
“A few.”
“Any that work from long range?”
“Sure, if I throw them.”
“No guns?” I mumble a curse.
“We can figure everything out,” he says.
“How?”
"We can fly nearby, and I'll drop into the water and board their boat. I'll find her, and you can pick me back up again."
“Because I know how to fly that thing!”
“I can give you a crash course. You’re a quick study, right?”
“No way. If anything, I should be the one to go.”
“So they can kill you and Nina? No way in hell am I allowing that,” he growls.
“So we use the plane as a brute force way, then like we originally plan,” I say. “Only thing is…”
“What?”
“What if they have cannons?”
"We'll get in so close that they can't use them. If we're directly overhead, their cannons can't hit us."
“But as we approach…”
“We can approach from above the clouds and then drop down on them.”
“I still want us to have guns,” I say stubbornly.
“Fine. Let’s go and get us some guns.”
We head to the shops in town, and we enter a gun shop. Strol asks for this and that and so many rounds it’s ridiculous. When the owner names his price, Strol grins and hands the man a card.
The man eyes it and grunts. “You sure you don’t want more bullets?”
“As many as you think I’ll need.”
“Depends on what you’re hunting.”
“The lowlife who took Nina,” I say.
“In that case…” The man plunks down a lot more and then another gun. “That one is on me. I know Nina. She’s actually a good shot herself. She likes to go to the shooting range. Whoever took her got the jump on her because she is strong and capable. She’s a fighter, been known to wrestle guys twice her size. She’s going to give them hell herself if she can, but that just might mean that she’s going to get herself killed.”
“We’re going to try to make that not happen.”
The man grunts. “I hope you can find her, but the authorities don’t have many leads.”
I glance at Strol.
“Some agree with the ones who might’ve taken her. This town is split. Some appreciate and remember what you and your kin did for us. Some have forgotten, I hate to say. Some might be protecting them, and her parents, her folk, they might not know who took her to be able to tell the police.”
“Frankie,” I tell him.
The man’s eyes widen, and he nods. “That’s who I would put my money on, yes.”
“He has a boat from what we were told,” Strol says as he starts to pack us his newly acquired weapons. What that card is, I don’t’ know, but the man doesn’t look like he’s going to give it back.
“He does. It’s a massive one, white. A beaut, actually. You can’t miss it in the sea.”
“Good.”
We head out of there, and I side-eye Strol.
“A card that states the government is to reimburse him for the purchase. I swiped a few from my father before I came to Earth. The government is to then seek payment from the Novans.”
“You socked your father with quite a bill.”
“I don’t care if he makes me pay it back. I will,” he says grimly.
“You know how to use those?” I ask.
“I do. You?”
“Of course. How do you think I hunt?”
“I thought I saw you lay traps.”
“I use traps sometimes. I also use my gun to kill, and then I know my way around a dagger too.”
“Yeah, I have my shuricutter and my krislasher, but those are for close-quarter combat.”
“You did mention throwing,” I remind him.
“Yeah, but I don’t do that all that often.”
By the time we reach the plane, I’m so nervous I’m ready to puke.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” I ask.
“If you don’t want to—”
“I do.”
“If you would rather stay behind and talk to the police—”
“I don’t.”
“Then good idea or not, I’m ready. Are you?”
I nod. “Let’s go save Nina.”
15
Strol
I grin at Isabella. She’s every bit as much of a fighter as that weapons guy said Nina is. We’re going to save her. I just know we are.
The plane flew here well enough, and I think I’ll be able to get her to listen and do what I want, which is to hover in place for us while we both descend to take over the boat. We have no idea how many will be on the vessel, and we’ll have to be careful, but I think our best bet to save Nina is to attack
first and ask questions later.
Risk? Yes. Reckless? Debatable. Necessary? Without a doubt.
It’s do or die time, daredevil style with a life on the line.
The clouds are drifting away, though, and I grimace. We have to fly up much higher than I would like to try to remain out of sight, but there’s nothing much I can do about the weather. The sea comes into view off the western side of the town, beautiful blue-gray clear waters. There aren’t many boats out on the waves, but there she is. The white boat has to be Frankie’s. It’s massive all right, even from this high up.
As we get closer, Isabella holds her guns. She has one in each hand, and she looks like a total badass. I want her so badly, but now is not the time. Later. Later I will have her, and it will be glorious.
But only after Nina is returned to her family.
“Are you ready?” I ask her.
“You need to stop asking me that. Aren’t we ready?”
“Yes.”
I drop the plane and stop just above the boat. Everything not tied down on the boat begins to blow around from the plane.
Quickly, I double-check the controls. Everything seems to be in place, and the plane should hold still even if the wind starts to pick up. We should be safe.
Then again, they can move their boat out of range at any time, which would make us sitting ducks. They could angle to use their cannons on us.
And they do have cannons. The other boats I spied on sitting at the docks don’t have cannons, but this boat isn’t like them. This one is rigged for war with cannons on either side.
Whoever this Frankie fucker is, he has a shitload of money somehow.
I nod to Isabella. “You stay here and watch over the controls.”
“I don’t think so,” she says stubbornly. “We’re in this together.”
“I don’t want anything to happen to you,” I protest.
“And I don’t want anything to happen to you,” she fires back.
“But they’re going after women who have a thing for blue cocks, remember? They see you up here with me, and they’re going to know that we’ve been… that we’re together.”
“I don’t care if the whole world knows,” she retorts.
Fuck me. That’s the sexiest thing she’s ever said.
“I don’t know if I can keep you safe and save Nina at the same time.”
Dazzled by the Alien Daredevil: An Alien Abduction Romance (The Kurians Book 5) Page 9