ALIEN ABDUCTION (Captured by Aliens)

by Fox, Jaide

  Just when she began to wonder if he was simply taking her deep in the mountain to do away with her in some abandoned pit, they reached a rocky shoreline. Black water lapped at the edge, barely moving with a gentle breeze.

  Tied up along the shallow shore were several small boats. Fallon selected one and gestured for her to get inside. Ebony looked at him and then at the water.

  “I don’t like the look of this,” she said. The water looked as thick and black as ink. If she fell in, with no light of her own, she could drown. She had no way of knowing how deep the water was, but it looked like it went on for forever.

  The subterranean lake gave her the willies. Ebony shivered.

  “I will let no harm come to you. I give my word,” he said, putting the hand that held the light over his heart and offering her the other.

  She nodded, swallowing audibly before allowing him to take her hand and help her into the boat. At least I don’t have those stupid flimsy skirts to trip over anymore, she thought. Fallon gave her the palm light and untied the boat before quickly jumping inside as it floated away from the shore.

  “Just point it that way,” he said. “Guide me.”

  Ebony nodded again and pointed the light in the opposite direction from where they had come. Fallon took up the oars and began rowing, and the boat sliced quickly through the water.

  Something bumped the underside of the boat. Ebony nearly jumped out of her skin. Shining the light on the water around them, she caught flashes of sickly white-fleshed fish, or eels, or snakes, swimming under the surface--drawn to the light she was holding.

  Ebony couldn’t help the startled shriek that erupted from her mouth.

  “It’s just fish,” Fallon said with a little laugh.

  She shuddered. “I’m not normally so girly, but that shit’s freaky! You could have warned me.”

  Fallon’s shoulders and arms bunched as he propelled them across the lake. “Honestly, I haven’t thought about them in quite a while. They are one of our food sources down here.”

  Ebony sneered, flaring her nostrils. “I hope they taste like catfish….”

  “They are quite good. You just finished eating a big helping of them in your soup this evening.”

  “Oh...” Ebony gulped and nearly hung her head over the side of the boat, but then sat up again, determined not to show any weakness in front of Fallon. “I see why King Kore’s miners didn’t go any further,” she said. “I wouldn’t either, if I was in charge.”

  “The water was a deterrent to them. They couldn’t find an end to the lake, but they didn’t know where to look. We have had ample time to explore the caverns.”

  As he spoke, he began to slow his rowing and then stopped completely, coasting the remainder of their journey. Ebony shined the light around and saw that there was no gentle slope on this side, but only a high rock wall. Above, she could see an opening, and wondered how the hell they’d ever managed to see it to begin with.

  Fallon caught hold of the rock wall as the boat drifted past it, and she saw that there were metal rungs drilled into the solid stone that could be used to tie off the boat and--she almost groaned out loud--climb up the wall. He held the boat steady as she started up the ladder with shaky arms and legs. Seeing the black water beneath the boat continued to terrify her, especially since she knew now what sort of things that lived in it.

  He hadn’t exactly comforted her about it.

  Fallon climbed up behind her. “Do not fear. I’ll catch you if you fall.”

  “Thanks for the confidence,” she said wryly.

  “You’re a testy little thing, aren’t you? Prickly as a baby Zhala.”

  She looked down at him and caught him eyeballing her backside. He looked back at her with an almost guilty expression. “Ha! Caught you staring,” she said, and then dragged herself up over the ledge. She lay on the ground for a moment while Fallon joined her up top.

  “Are you going to get up, or just lie there?”

  She breathed heavily. “I’m just trying to regain my nerve. I think I left it back there on the boat.”

  He laughed, grabbing her hand and hauling her to her feet. “Lies spill from your mouth. I would never believe you afraid of anything. You have the spirit to match any of our women.”

  “Well, you’d be wrong. I’m a total coward. Scared of my own shadow.”

  He snorted and led her through the toothy mouth of the cavern opening.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Once inside, Fallon set the palm light down and hit a switch on a haphazard lighting fixture they’d set up in the opening. Light flooded the area, revealing the mining operation.

  Glad to have the darkness banished, Ebony saw long tables set up along one wall and sloping down to an awaiting basin.

  “Over here are our rock crushers,” Fallon said, pointing. “The ore has to be smashed out. We put the rock here in this washer. The hose leads to the water back there, and is pumped up here to separate the two. See?”

  “Oh. I hadn’t noticed that before,” she said, following the line of hose up and down the area.

  Fallon walked forward. “Operations are done for the day, but there is a little left here in the basin. Come here. Touch it.”

  He looked at her expectantly. Ebony walked to where he was standing and watched as he dipped his own hand into the water of the basin. When he brought his palm up from beneath the water’s surface, a molten, silvery substance coated his palm in beadlike droplets.

  It reminded her forcibly of mercury. She was reluctant to touch it. “Does it absorb into the skin?”

  He shook his head. “It does not. It is not liquid, but very lightweight. We crush the rock, the rock sinks to the bottom, and this--chalcedonite--floats to the top.”

  Ebony touched her finger to it, surprised to find it was indeed solid and felt somewhat like putty. “Weird,” she said. “This kind of reminds me of gold mining back on my planet, except the gold is heavier than the rock. Gold’s super precious and expensive there, in case you didn’t know.”

  “I’ve studied your planet,” he said simply. “We have gold here as well. But this is what will buy our freedom.”

  “Then why do you need a bunch of women from a harem?” she asked him.

  He wagged his finger at her. “All will be explained in good time. This is enough for today.” He washed off his hand until all the silvery droplets were gone, and then motioned to her to follow him back to the ledge.

  Fallon started down the ladder first. “You can come down now. I’m down to the boat. You have enough room below you. Just go slowly.”

  Girding her resolve, Ebony got on her belly, swung her feet around, and felt with her toes for the first rung. She found it after a few heart-stopping seconds and put her weight on it, preparing to descend.

  As she lowered herself, her foot slipped.

  Ebony sucked in her breath as she suddenly lost her balance. She gripped the ledge hard with her fingers but already her hands were slipping.

  “Ebony! Put your foot back on the rung! I will help you--“

  “Hurry,” she cried, frantically searching for the rung with her toes. “I’ll hit the boat--or that water that looks like ink--help me, Fallon, if I go into that water I’ll die of a heart attack if I don’t drown first--or get torn to shreds and eaten alive by those monster fish--oh, help me, please!”

  “Hold on. Do not panic,” he said, but she could hear the fear in his own voice. “I am here. I will help you--“

  A scream erupted from her throat as she tried and failed to catch herself on the rung.

  “Ebony!” Fallon’s horrified cry was the last thing she heard before there was a tremendous splash and cold, slimy water blacker than coal closed in over her head.

  Immediately she threw her head back and flailed with her arms, but she could feel herself sinking--she never thought her life would end this way, so suddenly and so stupidly--

  Then her feet hit something solid--like a metal platform--oh, maybe it’s not
so deep after all! But when she tried to push off of the metal surface, her feet slipped and she fell forward in the black water.

  Then her flailing arms hit something large and solid--and moving--Dear Jesus, one of those fish is going to eat me! She would have screamed if there’d been any air left in her lungs...she could not breathe and the shocking cold crept into her bones and her heart pounded madly in her chest...and she continued to sink and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

  She could not find the metal surface with her feet. It was over...

  Then the solid, moving object grabbed hold of her arm. Her panic nearly made her pass out. That fish! It’s got me! But then she began moving upwards, towards the surface, faster and faster, until at last she burst through and was gasping for air and coughing the awful black water out of her lungs.

  Fallon’s big hand was wrapped around her wrist, snatching her back from her doom. He pulled her back onto the small boat with one arm, and then held her tight against his body as he steadied her on the bottom of the boat.

  Ebony looked up at him, her heart pounding in her throat, and went on coughing. For a moment she thought he was going to kiss her--and she realized she would have gratefully kissed him back, as thankful as she was to be saved.

  “Th-thank you,” she whispered, clinging to him.

  “My little one does not have wings. You cannot fly. Try to be more careful. I will not always be nearby to catch you,” he said in a murmur, looking at her for long moments before finally releasing her.

  Feeling the boat beneath her should have calmed her down, but her nerves were on high alert--torn between terror and something else. The adrenaline remained and she found herself shaking from fright and trying to sit up.

  Fallon pushed her to lie down again in the boat. Then he took up the oars and remained stone-faced and silent as he rowed them back across the deep black lake.

  ***

  It seemed to take forever, but finally Ebony found herself back in her room with the two large beds--and with Damon and Fallon. She was very relieved to find that there was a small shower in the bathroom and a supply of soaps and washrags and towels, and she spent a long time in the hot water scrubbing and scrubbing herself.

  She felt that she was trying to clean away the dirt from the forced march, and the slime from the cold black lake, and maybe even the filth from being held as a sex slave for so long in the palace of the king.

  At last, with only a too-small towel wrapped around her, she left the little bathing room and went back into the sleeping area. On the clothes rack she found another clean set of blue scrubs and another pair of soft leather ankle-high slippers, but decided she was too tired to put them on. All she wanted to do was lie down on a soft bed and sleep.

  But before she lay down, she sat on the edge of the bed with just the towel over her and frowned. “Why are the two of you here? Isn’t one bad enough? All the other women have one man bunking with them, but I have to put up with two?”

  “There are only so many rooms in this place, Ebony,” Fallon said. “My men have each earned a private room--“

  “Yeah, a private room with a kidnapped concubine in it,” Ebony snapped.

  “--and that leaves one room for the three of us.”

  “Again--why do I have to put up with two of you when the other girls only have to tolerate one? Or are you hoping all of us will fall for you big guys, and refuse to go back to the harem so you can keep us for yourselves?”

  Fallon laughed a little, though his face was grim. “There is no time for love in this place, Ebony--not for anyone. I resist it, as do all of the men who follow me. If we are ever able to get women of our own again, those women will have to bear children from as many different men as possible in order to replenish a very limited gene pool. And that is not the kind of thing that bodes well for love and marriage.”

  It was Ebony’s turn to laugh. “Yeah, it would be a kind of reverse harem, wouldn’t it? Funny how those things work out.” She shot him a glare, and then pulled back the blankets, flung the towel across the room, and lay down in pure exhaustion on the bed. Sleep was already beginning to claim her when she realized that Fallon was crawling in beside her and Damon had turned out the main light and was taking the other bed.

  But right now, she was just too tired to care. The last thing she heard was Fallon’s murmur in the dimness. “I don’t like this any more than you do, little one. But we all have to make sacrifices.”

  ***

  Ebony did not know how many hours had passed, but after a time she woke up to the sound of raucous snoring. There were two sets of terrific snores and one of them was only inches from her ears.

  She also became aware that Fallon was sleeping flat in the bed, spread out all the way across it, and she was being squished against the hard wall without room to move. Her back and hips were beginning to hurt. She tried to roll around in the bed, but couldn’t move. Yet both men seemed to be sleeping very soundly and comfortably.

  Ebony sighed. She was trapped in a small bed by one behemoth loudly sawing logs and had a second one adding to the noise.

  Then she opened her eyes. What better time to make one last effort to escape?

  Ebony sat up. Fallon continued to snore. She tried to crawl over him, but in his sleep he rolled over and trapped her under his arm. It was like being crushed under a fallen tree. She tried to slide free, but all he did was continue to snore.

  She managed to get out from under his arm, but then he rolled again and threw his leg over her. She struggled to get out from under him, and then noticed that he was trembling--shaking--he was laughing--he was awake.

  “You bastard! You’ve been awake the whole time. I’m trying to sleep after the worst experience of my life--and believe me, falling in that water was even worse than being abducted by aliens--and you’re making some kind of joke about it!”

  He sat up and reached for her, still chuckling. “Now, Ebony, I only thought to--“

  She hauled off and smacked his outstretched arm. For a brief second, he looked shocked and angry; but then he simply lowered his arm and smiled a little. “I only thought to make you laugh a little and perhaps forget your fear for a time.”

  “Well, you--you--“

  “I did, didn’t I?”

  “Hmmmph!” Ebony snorted and turned around to face the wall, and then threw herself back down on the bed. “Maybe now I can at least get some sleep--“

  But he immediately pinned her to the bed and kissed her. At first she squirmed and swatted at him, but then began to respond to his warm lips sawing on hers and his strong arms around her shoulders.

  He was warm and solid and strong, and she rather liked the way his thin lips melded against her full bottom lip. He tugged her bottom lip with his teeth, sucking at her. Tingling sparks ignited low in her stomach, making her womb ache in a familiar way.

  She caught her breath as his big hands caressed her breasts and his fingers plucked at her nipples, first one and then the other, and slid down her side to find the curve of her ass and thighs. That wasn’t exactly where she wanted him….

  Ebony began to relax and let her knees part...and then Fallon turned away from her, rolled over, and began snoring again.

  Stunned, she lay there for a second, waiting to see what he’d do.

  “Hey! What are you--what are you doing?”

  But there was no response, except for louder snoring.

  “Bastard!” she fumed again. It was obvious that he was determined to tease her, and all she could do was stop playing the game. She lay down on the bed again, edging as far away from Fallon as possible.

  Then she thought she heard soft laughter from across the room. Damon. They might as well be one person—they both thought the same way. She sat upright and glared into the darkness. “And you can just shut up right now!”

  There was silence at last. Ebony lay down again, sighed deeply, and tried to sleep, but with the unrequited ache in her sex, she didn’t have much hope that
she would. And she be damned if she’d beg anyone to satisfy her itch.

  ***

  The next morning, Ebony slowly opened her eyes. Without moving, she glanced to one side to see if Fallon was still there--but she found that she had the entire bed to herself.

  She sat up, shaking her head to try to wake up more fully. “Guess I slept better than I thought I would,” she muttered. “Nothing like nearly drowning in cold black water full of hungry monsters to cure insomnia.”

  Ebony took a deep breath, and then noticed that Damon was sitting on the edge of his own bed. He was bare chested and had the white sheet thrown over his lap. She pulled her own white bedsheet up over her chest. “Fallon left you here? Where’d he go? Or should I even ask?”