Alpha Alien: A SciFi Alien Romance (Bound to the Alien Book 1) Read online

  I admit that my less-rooted lifestyle made his threat sting. I hated the sad truth that, if it came down to his word against mine, I was a stranger. Just a drifter with no one to vouch for me in a clannish desert town.

  I spit on the ground and made my voice gravelly and low. Selling that I was a threat was as important as following through. "You move toward me so much as an inch and I will put you down like a rabid possum. Get on your knees and raise 'em to the sky." It was a little hokey, but it got my point across.

  His eyes bored into mine and I kept the barrel of the gun pointed at his midsection without wavering. He finally dropped to his knees and put his hands over his head.

  Len had stayed pressed into the ground, but shouted over at me. "I want no part of this. I thought it was just gonna be one of those dawn raves. My momma raised me right, I swear it." His voice quavered and I could hear him struggling to finish his words. He was almost crying and I believed him. At the very least, he was completely terrified of me. I could work with that.

  At that point, I didn’t care about interpreting my stupid dream, I just wanted to go home to my mommy. I wanted to get away from them. And I wanted to wash the taste of the ashes of yet another terrible idea out of my mouth.

  I backed away from both of them, giving myself more room to maneuver, if it came to that. Since Len only wanted to get away from me, he was going to help me. I wasn’t leaving anything behind.

  "Alright then, Len, do me a solid, would ya? I have a few things around the campfire. Put them in my car, it's unlocked."

  He scrambled to his feet, pathetically grateful I hadn't shot him out of hand. It was the Wild, Wild West, sort of. He hastily obeyed me, gathering my sleeping bag and random crap and shoved it into my car. I was exceedingly grateful I hadn't brought a ton of stuff with me. When he finished, he went back to the truck and lowered himself to the ground.

  Frank glared at me the whole time this was happening. He finally said, "You know this doesn't end here. I'm headed straight to the sheriff. Two upstanding citizens' words against one stupid, trespassing junkie. Don't think my uncle will back up any part of your story. No one in town will speak against me."

  Goddammit, even if the shaman wasn't in on it, he'd sent me onto private land, where I wasn't supposed to be. Assholes, all of them. But I just smirked at him and released the ace up my sleeve.

  "Well, then, I bet they'll all just love the recording I'm making. Gotta love a dash cam." I'd never been more grateful to my mother. So what if she was a total free-spirit hippie; she also believed in covering her ass.

  It was the one thing she'd insistent I install when I decided I was going to drift from town to town, making art. A dash cam and terabytes of memory. "Just in case anything interesting happens that you want to remember," she’d said.

  So I'd recorded the whole stupid night.

  "Seems like you've done this before. I'm sure the sheriff will be real interested in what I have to bring him."

  I edged slowly toward my car, pausing slightly to look over at the glowering man whose face was turning red and whose hands were clenched into fists in the sand. As if he had the right to be furious that I wasn't incapacitated, that I hadn't been his for the taking, that he hadn't been able to take advantage of me. Sometimes I really hated people.

  "I see that little pinhead of yours trying real hard to think,” I said. “I can't have you following me, but since your little friend Len was so good and helpful, I don't feel like killing you today."

  Damn, I sounded so calm and matter-of-fact. The six months I thought I wanted to be an actor were paying off! With that said, I moved quickly, and fired off two rapid shots. The delight I felt watching that nasty little rapist’s face was pretty epic.

  He was trying to figure out what happened. He wasn't shot, so what I had done? Oh, I just blew out his tires and windscreen. Chewed up the paint something fierce, the buckshot spread left a hell of a mark on that pretty new truck.

  I pasted on my most pleasant customer service face and said, "When I get back to town, I'll get a hold of the sheriff, just like you wanted. Let him know where you are, so he can come fetch you."

  I tilted my head and stared at the men. I was pretty sure Len had pissed himself and Frank just glared at me with hate-filled eyes. What an asshole. Maybe telling the sheriff could wait until I was well on my way out of town.

  I'd rather just send him the footage and make sure I was not easily at hand for any revenge, if he had similarly-minded friends. This could be the kind of small town that would rather cover up trouble, than pull it into the sunlight. And I wanted no part of that mess.

  And that's when everything went completely to hell.

  All of a sudden Frank's eyes got wide and panicky. I stood firm, I wasn't about to turn my back on him, no matter how good an actor he was. I doubted there was anything behind me, let alone anything scary.

  Until a massive shadow blacked out the sun and cast us all into darkness. Well, deep shade. For a hot minute I thought the drugs had kicked back in and sweat broke out over my entire body. Was I starting to hallucinate again? The hair on the back of my neck stood up and trickles of sweat trailed down my back.

  Multi-colored lights danced on the ground in front of me, like the rave Len had been expecting, and dust kicked up, sparkling all around me. The cold trickle of fear in my spine fought against my rational side as I built up the courage to look over my shoulder. I was planning a quick glance, while keeping the gun firmly pointed at Frank.

  Except my over-the-shoulder glance turned into a wide-eyed stare. The shadow and lights were not a product of my brain freaking out on drugs, but a massive metallic object hanging silently in the sky over us. It was all angles and bright lights.

  My brain short-circuited and I started babbling. "This is those stupid drugs. That thing is not there. Or if it is there, it's some wacky experimental test ship from a nearby Air Force base. That thing is not just floating in front of me."

  I was frozen in place, in shock, as I watched a gangplank lower from its underbelly. It was every cheesy sci-fi movie I'd ever seen, with a back-lit silhouette standing at the top.

  The lights got brighter and I could see that the figure wasn't human. I mean, I guess it could have been. It was generally human-shaped, if that human was really, really tall and built like a god. He literally gleamed in the light as it glinted off what looked like topaz and bronze scales.

  Icy fingers of dread tiptoed up my back. I could feel the burning hot rage emanating off the bronze god that hovered over us. There was no way the drugs were causing this, but I desperately wanted them to be.

  Then the being's eyes were on me and my insides melted. The force of his gaze stole my breath away and I wanted to reach out and touch him.

  That was when I finally started to really panic. I needed to get the fuck out of dodge because that thing looked like he was going to devour me and suck the marrow out of my bones. My fight or flight instinct shifted completely to flight as I tried to figure out if I could make it into my car before he flayed the flesh from my bones.

  The moment of my total freak-out coincided with Frank deciding that was the moment he was waiting for. The shock of everything had loosened my grip on the gun and he moved way faster than I gave him any credit for. He slammed into me and pulled the gun away from me. I staggered back slightly with my hands raised.

  I'm not sure why he thought wasting time hitting me in the face with the stock of the gun was a good idea, but I had just trashed his new truck and none of us were thinking very clearly.

  But I still went down like a ton of bricks. It wasn't a clean hit and he didn't knock me out, but my nose started gushing blood everywhere and that made the bronze alien-thing go completely fucking insane. A growly sonic boom that I felt reverberate inside my bones escaped his open, screaming mouth as he rushed down the gangplank and toward us.

  I rolled around in the dust, trying to shake off the pain, while Frank emptied the shotgun on the thing. Nothing h
appened except the buckshot exploding into a shower of sparks in a perfect sphere around the bronze guy.

  Holy hell, a goddamn real-life force field. Surrounding a very big, very angry alien. My brain stuttered as the creature strode forward, all rage and clenched fists, and Frank stepped backward, tripping over me.

  He scurried like a crab, trying to get away from the angry thing and, of course, put me between him and the monster bearing down on us. As if a crazy space-faring alien wouldn't be able to tell the difference between us and figure out who had actually shot at him.

  God, I really hoped he could tell the difference between us. Maybe we all looked like pink blobs to them.

  On the other hand, I really didn't want an angry anything getting its hands on me, but I was so dazed I could only slump onto my back and let the blood stream down my face and into the sand.

  Maybe if I stayed very still, it wouldn't be able to see me, like the T-Rex in Jurassic Park. I pretended that lying frozen on the ground wasn't pure terror at work, that it was an actual plan versus being entirely too frightened to move.

  Besides being completely unable to move, I could see no point in running. At best, I would be lost in the desert while being hunted by an angry rapist and/or an angry alien. At worst, I would bring down his wrath on my head, instead of Frank’s.

  He was suddenly standing over me. I looked up at him and started shaking uncontrollably. All I could do was hope like hell that I was terrible at reading alien faces and he wasn't actually as apoplectic as he appeared to be glaring down at me.

  My mind was stretching hard to accept everything that was happening. The pain and fear and confusion were all too much and tears snuck out of my eyes. He towered over me and it was like something in me reached out to him, begging him not to hurt me. Begging him to hold me. Terror and desire clashed inside of me.

  As if reading my mind, he stepped over me, and I realized he had something in his hand. He flicked his wrist and suddenly it looked like a giant, glowing bull whip. It wouldn't be out of place as part of an art show at Burning Man.

  He whipped it around and it acted pretty much like a bull whip, snapping in the air. It traced patterns of light that hung in the air for several long heartbeats. Each time he moved his hand, the impossibly loud cracks kept me pinned to the ground, unmoving.

  I should probably feel bad for what he did to Frank, but the only reason that asshole was even here was the unsavory shit he had planned. Plus, since he had literally just hit me in the face with my own gun, almost definitely breaking my nose, I couldn't find a lot of sympathy for him.

  Frank probably shouldn't have shot at the alien guy, but I suppose if he hadn't done yet another stupid thing, he would be a completely different person, and not one being beat to hell by a pissed-off kinda-reptilian space invader.

  The furious bronze alien didn't seem capable of breaking a sweat, but each snap of the whip exhibited exquisite control and he didn't miss a beat. Frank was screaming and wailing and ended up trying to crawl away on his belly. The back of his shirt was torn to shreds and a row of perfectly inscribed lines was etched down his back.

  Every time Frank tried to get to his feet, that wrist flicked wide, the whip wrapped around his ankle and he was pulled back down to the ground. Frank was finally reduced to a puddle of blood and sobs.

  The terrifying alien swiveled his head at me, pointed to Len, who has been weeping silently the whole time, and liquid hissing emerged. I guessed he was saying something like, "Was he part of this?"

  Len started begging me for forgiveness and the spell the alien held over me broke. I shook my head and said, "No, he didn't do anything". He was an idiot for trusting Frank, but he seemed to have no idea what Frank had been planning. Len was ready to leave the second he realized what was going down.

  After what felt like an eternity of staring, the alien knelt beside me. He still looked pissed as shit, but even though he'd just beaten the living hell out of a man in front of me, my fear of him evaporated.

  However crazy it seemed, it really felt like he'd been protecting me, like what he was angry about was me lying on the ground, covered in gore. The strange connection I felt to him earlier seemed to thicken between us.

  His gaze softened, and he reached out a hand to wipe some of the blood off my cheek. I wasn't scared anymore but I still couldn't stop myself from flinching away from him. I expected his hand to be cold and hard, but it was warm and supple. As I jerked away from him, his eyes grew hard again. Angry blue agates boring into me.

  He pressed something against my upper arm and I felt a sharp pinprick, then a flood of warmth rolled over me. As the warmth swept through me, it took the pain with it as well as any control over my body.

  My limbs flopped into the sand. He fiddled with the device and I levitated upward. He moved quickly and scooped me into his arms. It made no sense, but being in his arms was like being wrapped in chocolate cookies fresh out of the oven. Like the security of finally coming home after a very long time away.

  At least I could still move my face and I finally stammered out, "What are you doing?"

  I felt completely stupid uttering those words. I mean, clearly he was magically picking me up, but I couldn't move my body, and a terrifying monster that made me feel very strange was literally carrying me away. All the fear and panic I'd stopped feeling rushed back in, and I started screaming and trying to flail against him, as much as my nearly paralyzed limbs would allow.

  Pure hysterical shrieking vomited from my mouth and he still said nothing, but he cradled me gently against his chest as he carried me up the gangplank and into his ship.

  I had no idea what the hell was happening. If he didn't look so alien, his bearing would have lead me to assume he was military and I'd strayed even farther into the desert places hard-faced men with big guns keep people out of.

  Except he was topaz-bronze and covered in scales, and if that crazy metal ship floating in the air was some military thing, the world had a lot stranger things going on than if he was an…alien.

  And I was being abducted. By an alien.

  He whisked me away, into the ship. I couldn't wrap my head around what was happening. I tried to look around me, to get my bearings, figure out what was actually happening to me. Not to mention, trying to keep track of where I was going.

  Escape. The need to flee, to get away was roiling inside me. The only reason I hadn't started physically fighting was whatever drugs were flowing through my veins, keeping me captive in his arms.

  Darkness crept around the edges of my vision and I felt as if I was wrapped in cotton candy. I wanted to dive into that fuzzy feeling. It was almost like I was sliding out of my body.

  If I couldn't physically escape, then I could at least sink into the darkness to get away from what was happening. But my brain is an overactive jerk and wouldn’t let me. Plus the thought of what might happen to me if I passed out gave me the strength to keep my eyes open.

  But I couldn't focus on anything, the walls around us were just a dark blur. All I could do was stare up at his face. I assumed he was male, he had a very masculine energy. If he were human, he would have been ridiculously, almost comically handsome. His jawline could have been hewn from granite.

  He was totally covered in scales, not just his arms and neck. On his face, they were tiny, almost imperceptible - but they grew in size as they went down his throat.

  Why was I suddenly taken by the desire to lick them? I shuddered slightly at the strange turn my thoughts had taken and he looked down at me.

  His eyes were shockingly blue, but with a dark slit down the center, like a snake's. As our eyes met, even though he still looked mad as hell, my nipples hardened to sharp points and I felt a flood of moisture between my legs. I wanted him in the worst way.

  What the fuck is wrong with me? But at that moment, all I wanted to do was explore what happened to the scales on his chest. I wanted to know what it would feel like to have his hard body pressed into me.

 
Another rush of moisture dampened my panties and his nostrils flared. Sweet baby Moses, please do not let him have some crazy sense of smell. He came to a sudden halt and the room flashed a thousand colors at once.

  He growled under his breath and let go of my legs. He was so tall my feet dangled - I still had no control over my body. In that moment, I’m afraid I was more likely to wrap my legs around him than I was to try to run.

  He pressed me against the wall and another wave of hot desire flooded me. I could feel every delicious inch of his body, it was hard and hot against me. Desire and panic fought to share the same space in my body.

  His lips captured mine and for one glorious moment, my body sang against his. For the first time in my life, I felt truly and completely connected to another being on an absolutely soul-shattering level.