MILITARY ROMANCE: The War Within Himself (Alpha Bad Boy Marine Army Seal) (Contemporary Military Suspense & Thriller Romance) (92 page)
Authors: Claire Branson
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.
Chapter Two
Oh Tom Hiddleston. Moire sighed, her back arching, her neck stretching. A pulsating warmth had gripped her in the space between her legs and had dragged her to the moon and back. She imagined his voice, that adorable accent, that amazing lilt.
Her right hand cupped her bare breast, her nipple falling in between her fingertips as she shoved her left middle finger into her cunt. The wetness spilled out under her, her own moans filling her bedroom as she thought of what it might feel like to have a man pressed down on top of her, to have his hands exploring the surface of her body, to have his penis shoved in her over and over again.
She grasped the rail of her headboard with her free hand. She shoved another finger inside her and then another, feeling around for that special spot. She bit her lip so hard it drew blood as her eyes rolled back and she climaxed.
She lay there for a little longer, the latent spasms coiling through her womanhood and down her legs. Then, when even that had faded away, she sat up, a little calmer than before, and opened her diary. It was a bright morning in Boston with spring well under way, but that only meant her job would get that much harder.
So it was with great reluctance that she climbed out of bed and made her way to the bathroom, her shoulders hunched over and her gaze cast down. She stood barefoot on her plush rug and winced at herself, her face still flushed from her morning activities and her pixie hair distributed wildly around her face. She pulled at the short strands, a familiar thought coming to her head. Her hair had been her life, her signature. At multiple feet, it had flowed down her back, but she’d cut it all off. With cancer, what else was one to do?
She ran a toothbrush through her teeth and pulled on her favorite pair of overalls a light wash style that hid the awkward, boyishness of her body, before heading down the hall to the kitchen. A smile played at her lips at the strong scent of the legions of flowers she had placed all over her kitchen. They shone brighter than she ever could. It was a perk of the job, never being the center of attention.
As she watched the coffee brew, she clicked on her voicemail machine…
“Moire Brendan. Where the hell have you been? I have been calling you for two hours straight! We need to meet up immediately to talk about these roses. I can’t afford long stems for the entire reception hall, but I just don’t see an alternative. You have to help me. Now!”
Moire frowned. Weddings were her money, but she hated them more than a person hated cockroaches. Long stems. How quaint. How cliché. She fingered her lilacs, listening to the air flow from its leaves as she shook her head. Flowers were like women: No one cared to look unless they looked like the cover of a magazine.
She poured a cup of coffee and went out to her garden for some inspiration. The garden It was a mix of wild and planned, the flowers her artistic children who disregarded their lines in every sense of the word.
As she surveyed, something caught her eye. She peered at the massive hole in her field of vision. Something had fallen into her garden overnight. She gulped, making her way through her flowers, her house shoes drenched in the moist dirt.
It wasn’t long before she came upon a mound of…of
man
. A small voice in the back of her head told her not to go. This voice of reason explained to her that it would make more sense to call the police or something. That would be safer…for her.
But what about him? What if he needed help? What would happen to him if the police came and took him away? The closer she got, the safer she felt. So, she kept walking. She leaned over him, but he looked like he was barely breathing.
She jumped at the sight of blood all in her dirt. He had such a lithe, delicate frame. The furrow of his brow made him look like he had dropped into slumber only after laboring over a complex math problem. Who knew?
She cradled her oversized cup of coffee in one hand and reached down toward him with the other. She just wanted to get a tiny look at his wound, just to see if it was really serious, like she would know the difference.
So she reached down toward him and plucked the jagged edge of his tunic, part of her wondering if anyone even still wore those. She pulled it back, reveling at his smooth, olive skin but wincing at what looked like a painful knife wound. She gulped just as a bee went flying over her head.
She gasped, stepping over her foot and tripping over herself. The coffee went flying above her head and, by some miracle, landed to the left of her. But she tumbled right on top of the man, her head slamming into his chest.
She scurried away from him as soon as she possibly could, covering her jeans in dirt in the process. Her skin tingled from the knowledge that she had touched him, but then it tingled with something else.
Her chest swelled, her heart aching and pounding in its rib cage. She drew her knees up to her face, resting her chin on them as her head was flooded with an emotion foreign to her. Her bones shook, her eyes rolled back in her head, her fingers clenched into fists.
She gazed at this man, her eyes like lasers catching every little thing about him. Her skin burned for him, her whole body possessed with the knowledge that he sat mere feet away. He breathed the same air as her, suffocating her. Her heart pounded in her ears, thudding in her chest, transporting thick, hot blood through her body. Her stomach churned, her womanhood throbbed. How foolish she was to think that she had ever had a choice.
She was possessed with an impossible clarity.
She had to have him.
Chapter Three
Moire barged through her backdoor, tracking mud all over her hardwood floors. She kept going until she got to her sink. She didn’t know what was happening to her. Panic welled up in the pit of her stomach as her vision went in and out. One minute here, the next there. She was obsessed with the man. The man without a name.
And now she could hardly see straight.
She gripped the edge of the sink as she started to lose herself. Suddenly she was no longer in her kitchen in the suburbs of Boston. Suddenly she was standing in an open field. Just ahead of her was a string of women tied to stakes.
“Witch!”
The people screamed this word over and over again as a man with a collar lit a torch. He handed the torch to another man, who then placed it on the bed of dried hay. Flames erupted, and it wasn’t too long before the smell of burning flesh filled the night air. She glanced all around her. There were people screaming in triumph, others crying in fear.
The sunny day had turned dark with smoke.
Moire trembled as the scene grew less and less distinct. There were people running here, dying there. Fire surrounded her, the heat of it pinching her skin. She was running as fast as she could, getting as far away from all of them as possible. “For Kahara.” That phrase filled her head. She shouted it over and over and over again before she reached the shell of the home that she knew.
Bodies had been drawn out. Dead bodies.
A family lay in the lawn, their skin charred beyond recognition.
Then she was running again. She hid herself in a forest. “For Kahara…”
Then the memory released her.
She ran cold water over her face, peering out of the window at that man as her mascara ran down her cheeks. She licked her lips and swallowed the bad taste that whatever that was had left in her mouth.
Then she went back outside. Her heart ached at the thought of him lying out there all on his own. So she approached him again, this time without the hesitation, and dragged him by his arms. It was difficult at first, but she thought about it, and she meditated about it, and she summoned that reserve of her strength from the pit of her stomach.
She had him in her living room within ten minutes. Idea after idea, solution after solution flooded her mind until she found herself in her kitchen working out a poultice she had concocted from a mix of her painkillers, spices, herbs, plants, and cosmetics. She had no scientific explanation for her inspiration, but somehow she knew it would work.
She mixed a little of it into some water, but then, when she watched it sink down to the bottom of the cup, she decided to switch the solvent to vodka. She put a straw in the cup and hurried out to her living room. She cradled his head in her lap. It felt so right, so natural. He stirred a little, his eye twitching, so she stopped and she watched him. She licked her lips, using her pinky to trace his own.
Her whole bodied tingled.
She draw the mixture into the straw and placed it in the man’s mouth. She watched with trembling hands until finally he swallowed, his Adam’s apple moving as proof.
She let out a sigh of relief and administered the rest of the liquid. It took her almost an hour to get the whole thing finished, but by the time she had done so, she could already sense the change in him. Another look at his wound told her that he was healing alarmingly quickly.
In another bout of inspiration, she grabbed three oversized buckets, filling one with sudsy water and the other two with warm water. She stripped him down right there in her living room and cleaned him. Her rag caressed every lump and line in his body, peeling off the layers of dirt and pain to reveal a beautiful man underneath.
She finished this and got even more curious. So she ran to her bathroom, plucked her Venus five blade, her Aveeno shaving cream, and her sheers, and she groomed him. As she did this, each stroke of her shaving stick revealing more and more of what had become her new obsession, she could have sworn that he was responding to her.
There he went again, a slight brush of his hand on her lower back. It brought goosebumps to her skin, nearly drove her mad with longing.
As she placed the blade on his chin for one final touchup, he wriggled his nose.
She froze, the fear she should have felt in the hours she was attending to him coming to her all at once.
His eyes snapped open.
