COWBOY ROMANCE: Justin (Western Contemporary Alpha Male Bride Romance) (The Steele Brothers Book 1) (99 page)

Chapter Six

Emily awoke to find herself in her own bed. She sucked in a breath, noting how simple this task was. Pain free. She closed her eyes and opened them again, but she was still laying in her own bed. This wasn’t a dream.

Lycon. Somehow she felt his presence but, she couldn’t see him anywhere around her.

Mauve sat sleeping on her small couch.

She licked her lips, her tongue no softer than sandpaper. She spotted a glass of water on her right side table, but when she went to pick it up, it slipped right through her fingers, crashing to the floor.

Mauve jumped at the sound, glancing around him before his eyes finally landed on Emily.

A soft smile stretched across his face. “There you are.”

“What happened? Did you go after me?”

But Mauve shook his head.

Emily’s heart dropped. That meant Lycon must have found her, which meant her little problem was far from being resolved.

“There was a man that came looking for you. He said that you had made some sort of agreement?”

Emily nodded. “Lycon.”

“Well he came back hours later with you.” Mauve stood up and came to her bedside. “I couldn’t take you to the hospital because of who you are, but he seemed to know what to do.”

Emily furrowed her brow. “So what did he do?”

“You were near dead and you had lost a lot of blood, and we had no medication so he just gave you his.”

Emily’s eyes went wide. “He gave me his blood?”

Mauve nodded. “It was the only way.”

“Is he okay?”

“I think so. He slept for hours but he’s gone now.”

Emily’s heart fell. Why would he leave her? She had spent so much time under his magnifying glass that she felt empty and exposed without it. “He’s gone?”

“He said something about…” Mauve shook his head. “It wasn’t worth your life? He would find another way? I don’t know.”

Emily’s eyes went wide. He had given up on her. “That was my last chance at uncovering Mum and Dad. He’s Kaharan, Mauve.”

His eyes went wide. “I’m sorry, love.”

Emily closed her eyes. “It could never have worked. You know my condition.”

“… about that…”

Emily’s eyes flashed open.

“It turns out that you and Lycon were somehow a perfect match. The transfusion saved you. Your blood and body are different now because of him. You can live a normal life.”

Her eyes prickled with tears of joy. “So I can…”

“Have a child, yes…and survive it too.”

She clutched her sheets. “This is so strange,” she whispered. What were the odds that this unique set of events would transpire? What were the odds that they would lead to her getting her life back?

Lycon.

There it was again, the essence of him. She could feel herself being pulled, but not just to the idea to him, to an actual location.

Could it be?

“I have to find him.”

She sat up, ignoring the way her head spun.

“How?”

“I think I know where he is.”

Mauve just furrowed his brow.

“I don’t know how,” she said as she drew her hair up into a ponytail, “but I just know.” She made her way to her closet and pulled the doors open. “Do you still have my wet suit?”

“From your surfing days?” Mauve asked, his eyes alight with amusement.

Emily shook her head. The thought of getting salt water from the Pacific Ocean in her nose in front of all the judges still made her cringe. “Yes, Mauve, from my surfing days.”

He shook his head as he walked away. “So glad that’s over.”

Chapter Seven

An hour later, Emily had followed her newfound sixth sense to the oceanfront just outside of Goolway. The waves tumbled over each other, calm but living in a way. She sucked in a deep breath and then slipped out of her leather sandals. The water was lukewarm as it lapped over her feet. She closed her eyes, hoping that the pull had been wrong, that it would now lead her to somewhere completely different, somewhere that wasn’t hundreds of feet underwater.

But it had only gotten stronger.

This was the only way to Lycon.

She sucked in a deep breath. “If he can do it, I can.”

With that, she stepped into the ocean…

She waded and then she swam, her eyes coated with an extra protective layer, one she had never noticed before that allowed her to see under the water. She pushed with her muscles, her blood, his blood coursing through her veins, until finally she saw it.

His sub raider emerged out of a dark, watery cloud, a steal beast. She circled it over and over again, part of her looking for a way in and another part of her gawking at the wonder of it all. Suddenly Lycon seemed so much more desirable. His underwater layer rendered him mysterious and forbidden. This was a place where a person could disappear.

Finally she found it, a latch right on the underbelly. She pulled it, her muscles burning in protest, and watched it open. The water current pushed her into this new compartment. Her eyes flashed wide in alarm, but then she told herself to relax.

Everything was going to be okay.

The essence of him had filled her.

As the latch shut, another smaller compartment opened, allowing the water to drain by vacuum power. Soon enough she was able to touch her feet down onto the ground.

No sooner had all of the water drained than she saw a figure coming through an archway, an opened pipe.

“Lycon,” she sighed.

He shook his head, his stare darker than ever as he approached her. “I couldn’t believe what I was feeling, that you could really be coming for me.”

Emily let out a short laugh. “You saved my life. How could I not?” she said as she took her first step toward him. That empowered her to keep going. She didn’t stop until her body was pressed against his and her arms were wrapped around his neck.

“My actions nearly killed you.”

“You can’t blame yourself.”

He wrapped his arms around her. “I hunted you for so long. I stalked you and schemed, and yet I never realized how awful it would feel when you ran from me.”

She shook her head, nustling it into his chest. “I didn’t run from you. Believe me, I wanted to come with you. I wanted to…” Then she began to tear up. “Before you saved me…”

“I know.” Lycon took her face in his hands. “Mauve told me of your condition. I wish you felt that you could be honest with me. My goals, my family’s name…all of Kahara is not worth your sacrifice.”

Emily kissed him, her lips dancing with his as a hunger she did not even realize she had been carrying her whole life was finally being satiated. “Now it doesn’t have to be.”

Lycon chuckled, his massive frame shaking with laughter. He kissed her neck and then her shoulder. The small flame in the back of her head became an all-encompassing fire. She clawed at his shirt as he deftly unzipped her wet suit.

He peeled it off her, stopping to marvel at her naked body.

Emily bit her lip, pulling him by the belt loops.

He hoisted her up, her legs straddling him. “Come away with me,” he said.

Emily smiled. “With pleasure.”

And with that, he carried her through the oversized pipes and back into his bedroom.

THE END

Kahara Lords

Book 8

(Can be read as a standalone book)

By: Lindsay Blanc

Enslaved by the Alien Lord

Chapter One

Tarys ached all over. He lifted his right arm but something pulled against him. The burning in the pit of his stomach seeped up through his chest and down his limbs. They tingled with thick blood. He tried lifting his arm again. This time it was easier, but he trembled. His muscles rattled over his bones.

He opened his eyes to a dark sky dotted with stars. He sat up, ignoring the pain in his abdomen. He licked his chapped lips.

The air smelled different.

He tried to remember everything about the last time they had been open. There were fires raging through his small village. Fear had gripped in his heart because they had been found out.

But when the humans showed up with their torches and their crosses, they had it all wrong. Not aliens, witches. Tarys didn’t even really understand what a witch was and why they hated them so much.

But they came for him and his family.

They destroyed everything.

Tarys climbed his way through the roots and dirt towards the surface he knew he would eventually find. He had dug himself this grave, hoping that one day he would wake up to a more peaceful time.

Once he resurfaced, he glanced around him, following the hodgepodge noise of civilization until the dirt turned hard, pavement. He pressed his bare feet onto it, wincing at the warm, rough surface.

He started walking.

Dread seeped from the back of his head as he realized that he wasn’t in Salem anymore…and this wasn’t the sixteen hundreds. Even if his friends and family had survived the Purge, they would have all been dead.

He arrived in a heavily lit area. He stared wide-eyed at the light poles and transportation devices that largely resembled what he remembered from his home planet. It had taken the humans nearly four hundred years, but they had finally caught up.

“Hey.”

He glanced up to find a group of four people standing on the edge of the street. He cocked his head at their clothes, but the glint of metal in their hands told him he shouldn’t trifle with them. So he bowed his head and kept walking.

“Yo, asswipe!” one of the men barked as they took him by the arm.

He stopped. “Is it I that you speak to?”

A man with spikey hair and a knife lodged in between the fingers on his right hand cocked his head to the side. “The fuck?”

Another, hidden in the shadows, mimicked him. Spiked Hair shoved him. “

“I mean you no trouble.” Tarys massaged the sting in his shoulder.

A man with a fire-red sweater gave him a quick nod. “Yeah? Then give me your necklace.”

Tarys glowered at the man, his hand flying to his chest. “No.”

“You got leverage?” Spiked Hair said.

Tarys stared down the length of his sharp nose at the congregation of common criminals. He watched them fidget, their bodies like snakes. “I don’t bargain with people like you.”

Spiked Hair laughed, his cackling sound echoing through the night. “People like us? What are you? Some fuckin’ Jesus type?”

Tarys heard the distinct sound of a weapon being prepared. He looked up just in time to see one of the men point a gun right at him. He counted them one more time. Four men. Eight arms. Eight legs. Four weapons.

One Tarys.

One medallion.

“So what’s it gonna be?” Spiked Hair gained on him. “That pretty little necklace, or your nut sack?” He flipped the knife in his hand.

That medallion was the only piece of Kaharan metal in his possession. It had been a gift from his wife on the day of their desmoirie, blessed by the elders and confirmed by her parents. Now, his entire family had died off along with the first and only Kaharan colony on Earth. Tarys had always thought his unique affinity for herbs and medications, to which he owed his survival, was a blessing. Now, four hundred years later, confused and alone, it felt more like a curse. So, as far as Tarys was concerned, he didn’t really have a choice.

He couldn’t help but to smirk at the ill-informed man. “Seeing as you can’t handle a piece like this, I’ll just have to offer up my—what did you call it?—nut sack.”

Another man called, “You know that’s your balls, right?”

Spiked Hair reached out for Tarys, his hand curled into a fist.

Tarys dodged this blow and threw one of his own. One quick calculation and he landed his fist right in the man’s face. The next man came around the back of him and gripped him around the waist. Tarys slammed his bare foot into Spiked Hair’s chest.

There it was, the blessed crack of the ribs.

He had no time to revel in this triumph before the man that held him drove a knife into his torso.

Spiked Hair cackled and writhed around on the ground, but his colleague stepped over him and trained the gun at Tarys’s face. Tarys bit his lip, grunting at the pain seeping throughout his abdomen. In one sweep, he stretched himself, kicking the gun out of the man’s hand before catching it in one of his.

The man that held him ripped the knife back out of his torso.

Tarys howled in pain, his blood splattering on the pavement and the dirt. Tarys acted without thinking, lifting the gun over his head and pointing it at the man’s face.

One.

Two.

He pulled the trigger, hoping it functioned like he thought it did. The sheer force of the gun threw the man back and yanked Tarys with him. His skull hit the pavement with a hard thunk. With a ringing head, he sat up, pushing through the pain because he knew there were two other men he had to take care of.

He trained his gun right at the two of them, but with nothing more than a knife and a crowbar, they knew better than to try to match him, so they scurried off. He dropped the gun before limping off.

He had walked nearly half a mile when his coughing started to get more and more intense. The hacking echoed through the night and left blood splatters in his wake. He knew he wouldn’t make it far, and part of him wondered if he was going to survive this at all. But he kept walking anyway. The night grew lighter above him just when he started to see little houses separated by tracks of land.

Tarys knew he would be safe there. He turned into the small community as a plan struck him. He dropped down onto all fours, the strain on his back and side far too much. He had grown lightheaded, the images blurring all around him. Suddenly the simple act of taking a breath was far too much for him to bare.

He stumbled into the yard of something that looked like a small cottage, flowers towering all around him. The sweet scent almost brought a smile to his face. That is, before he collapsed entirely.

He had already started to doze off when he remembered the last, yet most important, part of his plan: an enslavement charm. He squeezed his eyes shut and hoped to the gods that he had enough energy in him to do this correctly. He called on his own life force, feeling it ooze through the pores of his skin, letting it drive him to the point of no return.

Sweat sprouted on his forehead as he did this, grunts slipping out of his lips until, finally, it happened. He felt the seal cover him like a layer of petroleum jelly ready to slip off onto the next person that touched him.