Claimed by the Alien King
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Authors: Juno Wells
CLAIMED BY THE ALIEN KING
JUNO WELLS
All Rights Reserved.
This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locations is purely coincidental. The characters are all productions of the author’s imagination.
Please note that this work is intended only for adults over the age of 18 and all characters represented as 18 or over.
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Gun to her head, Maya would say her life sucked. Her mother thought she was a loser, she had no friends, she hated her job, and her love life...well, what love life? Did men still even exist? It was safe to say that her crappy life could not get any crappier.
Until it did. Sort of. Not really.
On a scale of 1 to 10, where would "I was abducted by a hot alien king" rank?
That was the problem. Abducted meant she didn't like it. It meant she didn't want to stay.
But minds can change, and the way this sexy alien man looked at her, the way his strong hands felt on her body...
God.
She could never leave.
"Would you like me to leave?" he asked quietly.
Maya closed her eyes in slight embarrassment, remembering belatedly that he could hear her thoughts.
"I—no," she said. "You can stay."
She swung her legs back into the water, listening as he moved about behind her. Soon, he sat down beside her, his shoes gone and his pants legs rolled up too. The sight of his bare feet in the water amused Maya for some reason. She supposed it was because he seemed so serious all the time that something as simple as being shoeless deviated from his character.
Her gaze roved across the beauty surrounding them, the sight of it squeezing her heart free of the anger she felt because of Lir and replacing it with peace and contentment.
"You own all of this," she said, caught between envy and wonder.
"It belongs to my people too, but it is mine, yes."
"Your humble generosity leaves me breathless, Your Highness."
Lir gave her an amused look. "Severe is the punishment for mocking the king, human."
The smile playing on her lips dimmed. "I am not just 'human'. I am Maya. I am more than just a species, Lir. I am just as valuable as your kind. Someone you can talk to. Someone you can touch—" She broke off, her face growing hot as she began to stutter. "I-I mean, not like you have to touch me if you don't want to—"
"You are mistaken," he said, cutting her off. His fingers closed around her forearm and she gazed up at him, her heart pounding faster. "Touching you is all I've wanted to do since I first saw you, Maya." He pulled her closer and Maya went to him willingly. "I want to do more than touch you. I want to have you, claim you as mine."
"'Night!"
Maya waved goodbye to her coworkers as she left the store. Outside, she zipped up her hoodie and headed off down the street. Her gait was slow, her entire body fatigued. Per usual on a Friday night, the grocery store had teemed with customers. Worse yet, three other coworkers had called in sick. Maya had found herself undertaking the workload of three people for the entire night.
One foot in front of the other
, she recited in her head. Her apartment was a twenty minute walk away from her job. On nights like these when her feet and back ached with every step, Maya wished she lived further away to have an excuse to ride the bus. Still, she was glad to save money where possible. Drowning in student loans accrued for a useless college degree, she could barely make rent most months. It sounded ludicrous, but public transportation was a luxury she couldn't afford.
It was no wonder she didn't have a social life. She worked horrible hours and she couldn't afford to go anywhere. Whatever 'friends' she had were acquaintances she'd gathered over the course of jumping jobs. In her head, she could hear her mother's voice. Hoarse from all the chain-smoking she'd done over the years, it ridiculed her for her life choices. On a subconscious level, Maya knew the hurtful things her mother said were borne from love and experience. Her father had been a large disappointment to her mother. A liar and a cheat, he'd abandoned them. Her mother had then converted her heartbreak into meanness.
Every mother wanted the best for her daughter. This was what Maya told herself during the times when her mother's belittling words got under her skin.
You aren't meant for anything great
. It was a phrase she'd heard too often to count from her mother. One she'd rebelled against for most of her life. Now in her mid-twenties, stuck in a dead-end job with no friends and no love life, the accuracy of her mother's words horrified Maya. She supposed her mother had been trying to tell her to keep her expectations in life realistic. To hope for more was to invite disappointment.
A gust of cold, early-winter breeze forced the morose thoughts from her mind. She refocused her attention to the present. It was too dark and late to be so unaware of her surroundings. The streets had poor lighting and she lived in one of the seedier neighbourhoods in the city. She had to stay alert in the event some nasty individual decided to mug her or worse.
It was as if thinking the thought conjured him. To Maya's dismay, a man with long, stringy hair materialized from the alleyway she was about to pass.
"Hey baby, I almost missed ya tonight," he said, reaching out a hand in her direction.
"Don't touch me!" Maya shouted, giving him a look of disgust. She'd encountered the man before. She called him The Creep. The first time she'd met him, he'd seemed pleasant enough to the point she'd struck up friendly conversation with him. Things were going along just fine until he began slipping dirty innuendos and requests for sexual favours into the conversation.
Maya hurried her steps, further upset when she dipped her hands into her hoodie pocket and did not find her pepper spray. She'd worn a different one today and had forgotten to grab the spray from the old one.
"You like playing hard to get, huh?" he said behind her, and it alarmed Maya to discover he was following her. "It's OK, baby. The fucking is better when you fight it."
"Get away from me or I'll call the cops!" she shouted, hoping to draw attention to herself. Perhaps if the man realized there were witnesses he'd quit harassing her. But the streets were dead and many of the buildings she passed remained dark.
This was bad. She had to do something to end this. She couldn't allow him to follow her home and find out where she lived. But she couldn't just stop walking either. Calling the cops was a good idea but when would they arrive? She had to outrun him or hide. Probably both.
"Come on, honey, you know you want it," he said. "You like it rough." He yanked her hair. With a scream, Maya took off in a run. She ignored the protests of her aching body and fled blindly down the street. She could hear him behind her, chasing her with a nasty laugh that echoed in her head. Taller than her, his legs longer, the man would catch her in no time.
Hide!
But where? Maya surveyed her surroundings, her eyes darting around in a wild, frantic search for a place to secure herself. Another alleyway was up ahead and when she was abreast of it, she darted inside. Her heart racing, she hoped it wasn't a—
Deadend.
She spun around and her terror skyrocketed when she found the man blocking the exit. She reached into her bag yet again, this time for her apartment keys. They were the only serviceable item she could use as a weapon. But the man propelled toward her, knocking her back and the keys out of her fingers. Her tired body was unable to withstand the force of his push and she cried out as she stumbled to the floor. He was on her in an instant, his mouth turned up in a malevolent grin.
"Can't get away now, can ya?" he said. His words and the evil intent clear in his eyes was the final push Maya needed. A surge of adrenaline filled her, and with as much strength remaining in her as possible, she punched him in the throat.
The man cried out and moved off her and Maya took that chance to scramble to her feet. A door stood on one wall of the alleyway and Maya ran for it. The man was getting to his feet. To run out of the alleyway meant another chase and she wasn't sure her body could endure. She needed to secure herself.
Her hands on the handle, she pressed it down and pushed the door inward. Spinning around, she shoved the door closed. But she'd made a bad choice. The door had no lock. He would get in. He would yank the door open and—
"Where the hell did she go?" she heard. His voice sounded thick and far away. Breathing hard, Maya stared at the door in a mixture of fear and confusion. What did he mean by that? She was right here. Maybe he was playing more games with her. Trying to give her the false sense of relief that she'd escape only to burst right in and hurt her.
Turning, Maya intended to find a way out or at least a place to hide, but what she saw made her immobile. She was in a strange circular room. Along the curved walls were rectangular blocks. They housed large, oval-shaped, glass embeddings which emanated a gentle, cerulean light. The floor was translucent, shimmering as though it only consisted of water. Above her, circular rows of amber lights further illuminated the room. Up ahead, affixed to the wall was a humongous TV-like display screen with four smaller screens on either side of it. Beneath those screens was a massive keyboard…or panel. It contained a confusing mix of buttons and knobs. Three large leather chairs with shiny, metallic arm rests faced the panel, the middle chair the largest.
The more Maya looked around, the greater her sense of familiarity grew. She'd seen stuff like this before…but on movies. It looked like…it looked like the inside of a spaceship.
That's impossible. I'm inside a building!
Maya looked behind her at the door she'd entered. It was embedded into one of the rectangular blocks. She could no longer hear the creep outside anymore but that could be a trap. Though she longed to retrieve her abandoned handbag, she would wait a little while longer until she was sure the man had lost interest in her. It was strange he didn't follow her, but she felt relieved he didn't.
Her eyes darting around the room, Maya took hesitant steps forward. It
looked
like a spaceship, but it was probably one of those scientific research centers. But why would they have one here in this crime-ridden neighbourhood? And why would they leave the door to a place like this unlocked? They were just asking for someone to steal their expensive, high-tech stuff.
She held her breath as she walked across the translucent floor, certain that a heavier than usual step would break the glass. With each step, her courage and curiosity strengthened. To her left was a hallway, the walls on either side lined with more rectangular blocks and their cerulean lights.
"Hello?" she called out as she walked, but nobody answered. The place had a sterile scent, like the smell of a brand new vehicle. At the end of the hallway where it branched off into two stood a glass stand. Strange, unreadable inscriptions consisting of varying loops and dashes was engraved into it. Maya realized it was a directional sign, but what kind of language was that? Perhaps this was a foreign research center?
Choosing the leftmost hallway, Maya encountered more of the strange writing along the walls. When she moved closer to look at it, the rectangular block in front of her suddenly slid to the side revealing a room. Startled, Maya edged away and watched as the block slid back into place.
"Huh. Now that's cool," she said. She stepped forward again and once more, the rectangular block slid open. The room was dark when she peered inside, but when she stepped into it, amber lights bloomed above her. At first, she thought it was an empty room, but to her right was a wall with a monitor and various dials and buttons surrounding it. On her left, cut into the wall was a bed.
Without thinking, she moved toward it. Sitting, she marvelled at how comfortable the bed felt despite looking so flat. Her energy depleted, her body drooped. When she lay on the bed, the lights shut off.
I'll just rest a bit here and then I'll head home
, she thought. Her eyes wide open, she told herself she wouldn't fall asleep.
But she did anyway.