Alien Romance: Stranded With The Alien Assassin: Scifi Alien Abduction Romance (Alien Romance, Alien Invasion Romance, BBW) (Celestial Mates Book 3) (9 page)

“What will you do with them?” The brunette looked back at Jayne. She couldn’t read his face, but she hoped that he could read hers. She lied to him, yes, but he wouldn’t do
this,
would he?

“Since when would that matter to you?” Phreema asked.

Kani answered for him, putting a hand up to Phreema to ease her off of him. “Alem’s slave will go back to her home in the capitol building… The other,” his eyes passed over Jayne’s, “She’ll go to a new buyer. We’ve thought it over, and she’s much too risky of an influence on you. She’s already dragged you out here once, D’Anil, we can’t risk it again.”

“I’ll take her for a night,” Captain Randleman grinned, “I don’t normally do earth girls, but I have a few things in mind for someone who wants to try and steal my ship.”

Jayne shivered at the thought.
Please don’t do this. Please don’t do this
.

Before anyone realized what happened, Captain Randleman was falling to the ground, a blade stuck in his head. Everyone looked around at one another before their eyes fell on D’Anil, his hand still in the air, frozen after throwing his blade. His eyes stayed on Kani. “No one’s touching her,” he said, “No one’s touching either of them.”

Kani didn’t even look at his fallen employee, locked in the staring contest with D’Anil. “If you do this, I will have to kill you,” he warned, “Don’t make me do this.”

“Will you let her go?”

His friend shook his head. “I can’t do that either.”

D’Anil shrugged, grabbing another blade from its holster, a longer one than the dagger used for Randleman. Jayne was stunned that he even had the first one. While he admitted to being a murderer, she never once saw weapons around the house, or even on him. When they stripped each other, she’d been too caught up in her lust to even pay attention, but they still felt like they came out of nowhere. “Then I guess we fight.”

Jayne ran. She didn’t want to see him die, couldn’t. Not when it was for her that he was dying. He could have just let her go, but he was playing the hero instead. She had to return the favor. Jayne continued to run up, ignoring the yells of Phreema as she ordered the men to follow her. She couldn’t panic now. She had to focus. When they dragged her through the ship, Jayne had tried to remember each turn and each room to prepare for her escape. And it was coming in handy now.

As soon as she entered the ship, she ran down the long hallway and turned a sharp right, then an immediate left and up the stairs. “Sophie!” Jayne screamed, just as she reached the bedrooms of the smugglers. “Hide!”

She heard a scurrying in the cockpit, but Jayne couldn’t stop to help her. She searched under the mattresses and in the drawers of the rooms where the smugglers slept. They were small and cramped, which helped her work through them quickly. On her third try, she could hear the pounding of steps on the floor as they approached.

“Two,” she murmured to herself, just as her fingers grasped onto something with a handle and a trigger.
Yes
, she grinned to herself. As a police officer, she’d had plenty of practice with shooting. Jayne backed against the wall, gun hugged tightly to her chest as the pair split up even more. With a cry, Jayne turned the corner and smacked as hard as she could with the handle. She felt his skull crack, his eyes widening in shock, one a pure white.
Gromm
.

Jayne kicked him square in the chest. “Out of my way,
bitch
,” she muttered to him, his body crumpling to the ground. The commotion was enough to draw the attention of the other, a man she didn’t know and shot easily. She made her way back through to the front entrance, hoping that no one else had gone inside of the ship.

When she reached outside, though, she only saw two men fighting with D’Anil, Kani and another. Another was dead on the ground beside him. Jayne counted down the amount of people that were gone already.
There should be two more
.

“Agh!” a cry sounded from her left. Jayne quickly fired, shooting a man square in the chest. He’d tried to surprise attack her on her exit, but it didn’t work out the way he planned. None of them had known she’d have experience chasing down people who wanted to kill her.

“Nice shot,” Phreema commented from behind Jayne, smirking. The woman had two weapons, a gun and a blade that she twirled on each wrist skillfully. “But not as quick as me.” Quickly, she drew, but Jayne managed to dodge.

She threw her body off the walkway of the ship, falling onto her back with a resounding thud. It was only a few feet, Jayne rising quickly to run. Just as she did, a blade whizzed past her ear, grazing just along her cheek. She felt skin slice open and blood begin to seep, but with one less weapon in Phreema’s hand, Jayne counted it as a blessing.

She hid behind one of the clay houses, peeking out around the corner just in time to see D’Anil knock down one more man. It was down to him and Kani. Both were evenly matched, knowing the other’s skills. Jayne couldn’t watch for long, focusing on her own opponent. She had no idea where Phreema went, not until she saw something red in the growing sunlight. A shadow dressed in sheer clothing. Jayne’s heart sped up, realizing where the shadow was coming from.
On top of the building? Are you
kidding
me?

Jayne somersaulted forward and turned around just in time to watch Phreema sail down. She was dangerously beautiful in the morning light, with her clothes billowing around her, like a mistress of hell. Jayne aimed and shot before Phreema could drag her down into the depths of the Underworld, shooting twice more in quick succession to make sure.

Her fight was over as she watched the ex-slave’s blood begin to get soaked up by the sand. And the complete silence meant that D’Anil’s fight was over as well. Afraid to see who lost, she stayed hidden behind the building. She kept her body within the shadow, hiding from the reaches of the bright sunlight, her breathing heavy and her nerves shot. There were footsteps getting closer to her, and Jayne gripped the gun even tighter in her hands. She begged every force in the universe to let it be Kani that died.

“Jayne?”

Her body shot up, gun pointed, but at his voice and the look in his warm, brown eyes, Jayne’s shoulders sagged in relief. D’Anil rushed to her just as she began to fall, her chest resting on his head. She began to sob. “I… I thought you were dead.”

“Such little faith in me,” he teased, kissing the top of her head, “Come on, we need to get inside. The sun’s up.”

But Jayne couldn’t move. She was exhausted, both physically and emotionally. But D’Anil didn’t let that stop them, picking her up in his arms and carrying her to the ship. He said something to Sophie, something she didn’t register. Jayne was too preoccupied with that feeling of dread and fear, how hard her world had been rocked by the idea that she lost him.

“Here, sit down,” D’Anil said softly, draping her body onto a chair next to Sophie. The blonde was, for once, the calm one of the two, working with complete concentration on the controls before her. “Do a body count,” he went on, “We need to sweep the ship, make sure we got everyone. I can’t leave you guys knowing there’s still more people here to fight.”

“Did she pay you to fight all our battles too?” Sophie asked, but when she looked at him, it wasn’t with the attitude that she gave Jayne. It was a knowing smile. D’Anil had proven his loyalty to Sophie, erased the distrust she once felt for him.

“I don’t leave a fight half-fought,” he replied with a smirk. He was covered in an old friend’s blood, but that didn’t seem to matter to him, Jayne mused, and she wondered why. D’Anil had no one here. She spent a month with him and never once heard about or met any of his friends. It was only ever his employer and Kani. And now he’d screwed the both of them over.

Sophie looked like she wanted to continue on the subject, but something she was reading caused her to frown. “It… It says there’s four people on the ship,” she said, looking at the pair.

D’Anil immediately left the room, and Sophie reached for Jayne’s hand, holding onto it tightly. After ten minutes, he came back. “There’s no one here,” he reported, looking lost, “Are you sure you refreshed that?”

The blonde nodded, refreshing it again. “It still shows four.”

The three sat there in confusion. “Maybe it’s a mistake,” Jayne suggested, “A glitch in the system.”

“I don’t like leaving you with those chances,” he sighed.

“Then don’t
leave
.”

“Jayne…”

Sophie sat, watching the quarrel with pity. She faced her own challenges with her master, but at least she didn’t
actually
get attached to him the way Jayne had with D’Anil. And that was when the thought came to her. Her eyes widened. “Jayne!” she almost shouted, then covered her mouth before recovering, “I want to try something. Stand with Jayne by the door, and have her walk out.”

“Why?” D’Anil asked.

“Just to see if it affects the numbers at all, or if it’s really frozen at four members.”

Jayne got up, obliging the both of them, though she still looked stubborn, hands crossed over her chest at the fact that D’Anil had refused to come with her before. Both listened to Jayne walk away and out onto the walkway, her steps echoing. Sophie refreshed the feed and grinned. “Two,” she whispered, “It went down to two.”

D’Anil watched the board carefully. “Jayne,” he called, his eyes never straying from the feed, “Walk back on.” More footsteps. Another refresh from Sophie. “Four…”

“There’s four living beings on this ship,” Sophie whispered, then looked over at D’Anil, “I don’t have to explain, do I?”

He didn’t answer her, staring at the screen, dumbfounded. When Jayne rejoined them, she looked at the screen that now read “four” again. “Stuck?” she asked.

But D’Anil was doing a whole different kind of math in his head. The first time he laid with Jayne, that night by the fire… He stood up, completely straight. “Jayne, it’s counting you as two people.”

She frowned. “Why…” And then the realization hit. “Oh my God.”

“Tell me you didn’t lie about this too. Tell me you didn’t know.”

Jayne shook her head. She tried doing the math in her head too. She counted the days since she had sex with him that first time, and she counted the days since she’d last had her period. “Are you… You’re saying I’m… I’m pregnant?” she asked, dumbfounded.

This was normally something she didn’t ever fear because she was great about taking her medications for contraception. But that was after she’d spent so much time in a ship where they hadn’t cared to keep her on that regime.

Her eyes found D’Anil’s. She could see something now, a gentleness. “Don’t,” she pleaded, “Don’t decide to come with me now just for this. Don’t leave everything behind just because you feel guilty about leaving me with-“

He surged forward again, their lips meeting in a passionate kiss. Jayne whimpered against him, her arms clinging to him. D’Anil was all that could help her from crumpling into a heap on the ground. “Shut up,” he murmured, “You were right. There’s nothing for me here, there never was.”

“But you said-“

“I know what I said, but I didn’t mean it,” he explained, “I’ve been mad since you first wanted to leave, mad that you lied, and I was mad with myself for falling for someone that could trick me better than anyone else could.”

Jayne gasped softly. He
fell
for her. “I won’t lie to you anymore, I promise,” she whispered, “If you want to come with me, come with
us
… Please. I can make you a life in New York, I know it.”

D’Anil pressed a hand to her stomach, drawing a light circle over it. “Apparently, we already started that together.”

She kissed him again, with all that she had left in her, every ounce of energy. Jayne’s mouth opened, her tongue searching for his and drawing light circles over the tip. D’Anil groaned into her mouth as they clung together, neither caring that Sophie was just feet away from them, looking away awkwardly. Jayne was just happy that he was joining her, and D’Anil was happy to be part of the destination she was running
to
.

Epilogue

It was hard to explain, at first, who D’Anil was. The fact that he was the father of her child made it more confusing, especially when she tried to tell people that he bought her to save her.

Her family and friends assumed it was Stockholm Syndrome, but then they watched the two together, how Jayne lit up even brighter whenever D’Anil entered a room, how he could calm her down when she started talking too fast, and how she could get him talking when he was otherwise silent the entire time.

It was hard to explain and hard to come to terms with, the fact that Jayne was impregnated by an alien who purchased her and called himself her Master, even if only for a month.

But they grew to understand. As Jayne would point out, their real enemies were those still on Imdali, the corrupt officials that let the slave trade go by under their noses. In her first few months back, Jayne worked harder than she ever had before, as much as D’Anil reminded her to take it easy with the pregnancy.

She worked night and day, filed paperwork, and spoke passionately to the Board of the Empire. She kept at it until the slave trade was found out, Alem arrested, and Imdali cleansed of an ancient tradition that should have ended a long time ago.

Now, she focuses on D’Anil and the promise she made to make a life for him in New York. He still is getting used to the loud sounds of the city and the streets, though the hardest adjustment is the cold. One night, Jayne finds him underneath a large mass of blankets, still shivering. She slides into bed with a smile, her fingers moving underneath the sheets to remove his clothing.

“Jayne, I’m, s-s-so cold…” he mutters, shying away.

She smiles. “I hate to see my Master suffer… I’ve got a few ideas to keep him warm, too.” Jayne focuses now on her own body, removing her clothes so that she’s completely naked and pressing against his cool skin. Her pregnant belly swells between them. She’s six months pregnant and feels enormous, but the way that D’Anil looks at it makes her feel a surge of pride each time, wiping away her insecurities.

Jayne snakes her hand down to his sweatpants, so much easier to remove than those leathers he used to wear, and slides herself down onto his length. Her smile turns into a grin as D’Anil takes pleasure in her slick heat. When Jayne is wrapped around his length, it’s the warmest he’s ever felt, a fire that consumes him in the best way.

She has him finally understanding why people always run to warmth for comfort.
Jayne
is his comfort.

***