COWBOY ROMANCE: Justin (Western Contemporary Alpha Male Bride Romance) (The Steele Brothers Book 1) (91 page)

Chapter Six

Jenna was strapped into the small control of that same pod. In the hour after their meal, Darys had gone through great pains to make sure everything was tied down before he took off. In the beginning, it wasn’t very much different than being in a plane, but as soon as her ears began to pop and Darys drove his joystick up to an even higher incline, Jenna couldn’t stop herself from clutching onto the sides of her seat for dear life.

They were racing through the sky. Then it seemed as if the sky were below them. Not like when you get on an airplane and the pilot cruises over the cloud cover. No. As Jenna looked out of the front window, she failed to find anything blue or white around her. Below her, she could see the earth’s atmosphere.

Darys pursed his lips as he held on to three different controls. Catching the hint, Jenna followed suit, clutching on to the handles on either side of her seat. The entire craft jumped, dipping as if it had finally freed itself from a string.

Jenna’s jaw dropped as a surprised yelp leapt from between her lips.

“Jenna.” Darys clasped his hand in hers, chancing on quick glance over at her.

Jenna allowed herself to be calmed by him.

“Everything is okay. Xei’s do this all the time.”

It wasn’t want Darys said. It was the way he said it, as if he meant to assert: “Don’t worry. This is a part of your culture. One day, you won’t be afraid.”

As he said this, Jenna caught sight of something right behind her. It was a space ship that spanned her entire range of vision. Lights from the windows dotted its dark mass as its sharp compartments jutted out into the space around it. Her heart swelled in her chest at the sight of it. “This is beautiful,” She whispered.

Darys nodded. “It is.” With that, he took his hand off of hers and directed his space craft towards the larger ship. The mass grew as they approached it until it seemed to engulf everything around them. Once he reached what looked like an industrial garage door, he stopped it, hovering right in front of it as it slowly opened. There were three Xeis with space suits on waiting for him as he entered.

As Darys cut the engine on the craft, Jenna noticed an oxygen gauge on the side of the wall and watched as it slowly rose to viable levels. Darys nodded, pressing a button on the side of his door.

Jenna’s eyes went wide. Suddenly, she realized that she was about to enter a space craft in the middle of space with no other human on it. But then she remembered she had more in common with them than otherwise. Even though she had no idea what to expect, she wouldn’t let herself cower from this.

So, she followed Darys out of the control room, down the short hall inside of his craft and out into the garage. The Xeis were only just taking their helmets off by the time Darys reached them.

They all nodded to him. “My lord.”

“My lord.”

“My lord.”

Jenna gulped. Something about his power just made him that much more attractive.

“Pilot,” Darys said, nodding towards one of the Xeis. He was a little shorter than Darys, but shared his same severe stare.

“I see you have already succeeded.” Pilot looked past him, his eyes settling on Jenna.

He scanned her with the kind of scrutiny she hadn’t experienced since her first day of grade school. He then stepped aside to let the both of them through. Once they were inside of the ship, Jenna found herself overloaded with things to look at.

Pilot first led them through a long, wide hallway, which bled into what looked like a gymnasium. Xei men were scattered all around it, slamming their fists into punching bags, shooting what looked like high tech arrows into targets. It all struck Jenna as unnecessarily militarized.

The men all stopped to look at her as they passed through. Darys, seemed to sense her discomfort, for he reached for her hand as he continued to talk with Pilot.

“I need to call a meeting, but first I would like to get Jenna settled in my chambers.”

Pilot raised an eyebrow at him. “How long are you planning to hold her?”

Jenna winced.

“I am not holding her. I only planned to keep her there until I had finished meeting with you.”

Pilot nodded, but his confused look did not go away.

Darys stopped walking, turning the full force of his glare on him. “It is not for you to question my actions,” He snapped.

Jenna didn’t move, except to take a breath.

Pilot nodded and they kept walking.

Soon enough, they had reached a barrier marked with an intricate-looking seal. The double doors had been bolted shut. One of the other Xeis that had been walking with them stepped forward with a set of keys. He unlocked the bolts, then moved away.

Pilot took it upon himself to open the door, then moved to the side to let them in. Jenna was affixed with the sudden change in atmosphere. Warm lighting bathed the short hallway that ended in what looked like a door made of black wood.

Darys stepped in front of her, pulling the door open to reveal a spacious bedroom. His bed towered at least four feet off of the ground, a black, ornate step stool perched right beside it. Beyond that, there was a wooden desk, covered in papers and diagrams, an armoire, a dresser, and an archway into what looked like some kind of washroom.

But as soon as the door shut behind Jenna, there was a question she had to get off of her chest. “What’s going on?” She asked. “It looks like you guys are preparing for some kind of… invasion.”

His blank stare confirmed her worst fears.

“Are you?”

Of course he was. He was a War Lord from a different planet with clearly superior technology and a thirst for survival.

“You are in no place to judge my decision.”

Jenna’s eyes stung as a lump began to form itself in her throat. She suddenly detested herself for having step foot onto his ship, for having sex with a creature that had a mind to destroy her home. “How could you?”

“I have a duty to protect Xei.”

Jenna clenched her jaw. For everything she had in common with him, for the connection she knew she shared with him, she suddenly found herself at odds with him. “I can’t condone this.”

Darys raised an eyebrow at her, but instead of actually indulging her, he turned to leave.

She raced towards him, grabbing his arm. “You can’t just come to earth and assume control of everything!” A kind of desperation had seeped into her veins.

“I don’t have much of a choice.”

“You could hide,” she said.

Darys glared at her, the force of his stare freezing her where she stood. “My people do not deserve hiding and persecution after all that they have been through. Humans will not accept us given the choice. They are creatures driven by fear of the unknown and a compulsion to keep things as they are.”

Jenna could not deny the truth in his words. But still, she had to try, “But if you would just—”

“Jenna!”

She clamped her jaw shut.

“I do not have time to argue with you about things that are over your head.”

He made her feel like a child… like someone…
something
less than him.

Then he left.

Chapter Seven

Jenna was racing through the space craft. “Darys!” she screeched. She raced through the halls. Xerxes natives wandered around her, their harsh stares questioning her. Yet they all gave her a wide berth as if, on some strange level, they were frightened by her.

It was odd how the creatures she had just learned that she belonged to strayed away from her, as if she was somehow damaged.

“Darys!” she yelled. She knew she was acting crazy but she didn’t know where to look for him and her time was numbered. Every minute that went by was another minute of the planning that would solidify the invasion of her home.

“Darys!”

Someone pulled an alarm button. Red light spilled into the hall. Xeis all cleared away, the sound of the siren bouncing off the walls. But Jenna kept running.

“Jenna!”

She skidded to a stop at the sound of Darys’s voice. She turned to find the War Lord standing in the center of the corridor, a scowl on his face. “I can’t let you do this!” she exclaimed.

“I don’t understand why you are so concerned. You are one of us.” He said as he approached her.

Jenna stepped away from him. “I’m not one of you. I don’t just take things because I can. And I don’t kidnap people.” Jenna stood her ground. She felt a need to overcompensate for how much she had conceded in such a short time.

“You cannot reduce my decisions to brutish actions. I am acting for the good of those who trust me with their lives.”

Jenna saw it then. She saw everything that had made her feel so at odds for her entire life. Sure she was different, an anomaly. But that “mistake” in her DNA, that hue of her eyes, had put her on this ship and right then it was easy to figure out who and what she was. “Well so am I. I’m not saying I don’t care what happens to you. I obviously like you and I know this is who I am. But I will not stand by and let you just take what has been ours for thousands of years.”

“I see no other option!” Darys seemed to be trying to convince himself more than her.

Jenna closed the distance between the two of them. She saw a Xei at a crossroads. She watched him linger on the cusp of total destruction and assured survival and something else—something harder but far superior. “So keep looking.”

He set his jaw somehow determined to be right.

“I know it’s not easy. I know who we are. Trust me. But you can help us. There’s a handful of you compared to millions of us…”

“Us?” Darys sneered.

Jenna gulped, grabbing his hand. “Us. Believe it or not, I’m human too. And if you were to mate with me or with anyone else remotely like me, or if anyone were to mate with anyone, you cannot deny that your children would be human to some degree. We are all human. Human is your future. You need us to survive. So you have to help us if you expect this to work.”

Darys softened. “You are not in the position to make any promises for them.”

Jenna scoffed, glancing around her. “But I’m the only one here.” She sighed. “You don’t know a thing about us. About what we’re capable of, and yet you were prepared to launch an attack. Do you have any idea what kind of backlash you would face? Or did you just assume that because you found us before we could find you, that you’re superior?”

Darys’s eyes seemed lost to Jenna as he gazed into the distance, seeming to be pondering what she was saying.

“My Lord!”

They both turned to find pilot staring at them. “The launch codes.”

Jenna’s heart stopped. She reached for Darys, holding his face in both of her hands. “Don’t fucking do it.”

Darys pried his face out of her grip.

Jenna stepped back, feeling completely defeated.

“Disarm the codes.”

Pilot’s eyes went wide. “But—”

“Disarm them!” Darys yelled.

Pilot turned and sauntered off.

Jenna could cry from relief. “Oh Darys.” She wrapped her arms around him, but he didn’t hug her back.

“This took me seven earth-months to plan. I have nothing to offer the Xei.”

Jenna was softened by the glaze over his eyes. “You can offer them a future devoid of war and sacrifice.”

***

Darys stared back at the human-Xei hybrid he had plucked from earth by chance. Somehow, she had managed to help him find strength in an intuition he had always had.

THE END

Kahara Lords

Book 3

(Can be read as a standalone book)

By: Lindsay Blanc

Saved by the Alien Lord

Chapter One

Coel pressed his body forward, his large hands squeezing the heavy wheel. His bushy brows furrowed as he peered at the monitor in front of him. His tiny space craft inched across the screen but he could see it in the distance.

The air grew hot around him, a halo of burning oxygen. He pursed his lips, flexing one arm to release another. His left hand went right for the joy stick; his fingers wrapped around it. A grunt slid out of his throat as he felt the pressure of a thousand suns pushing down on him.

His heart pounded against his chest and a hot, earsplitting whine cut through the air. A hysterical laugh leapt out of his mouth because right in the distance, on the edge of the monitor sat the first real mass of land he had seen in months.

No sooner had he reveled in this sight than he feel the pull. The craft lurched from under him, dragging him straight down. A sinking feeling gripped his gut, wrenching it out through his legs.

His strong hands began to tremble, the wheel violently shaking back and forth within his grip. He had to get a hold of it, and quick.

He flipped a switch, cutting the exhaust and the engine before lifting the craft out of free fall. Dry air cut at his nostrils. The screech of the craft begged for mercy as the plummet turned into a dive

Dust rose all around, the space craft breaking apart piece by piece to reveal the new planet—a place he had only ever studied every once and a while and from afar. Earth, a faint whisper that had suddenly become the face of the future.

***

Sarah shuffled through the thick woods, her boot-clad feet slamming one step in front of the other. She hadn’t had a sip to drink or a bite to eat in over four hours, but she couldn’t stop now.

Her heart thudded in her chest, her olive skin slick with sweat, her eyes red and swollen with tears. She had been hiking for the better part of the day and still could not figure out if she was running towards something or away from it. Her long, auburn hair stuck to the back of her neck and her shoulders. She reached up to push it out of her face, but as her arm fell back onto her side. A tree toppled; the ground shook.

A gasp slipped from between her plump lips. She stopped. A cloud of dust and dirt puffed into the air before her, but she just stupidly stared, her eyes wide and her mouth hanging open. She clenched her fist and her jaw and summoned from within her the very thing that ripped her apart from herself and everyone else. She lifted the tree without touching it, the crack of wood breaking and new roots forming filling the air.  It stood tall and strong as if nothing had happened.

Sarah turned back around and forged on through the forest. Her legs burnt from the strain and the incline only got worse but she kept up with it. Weeds sprouted from the slick mud. The energy fall out of her like water out of a glass.

She felt herself arrive. With one glance up, she knew this is how she wanted to spend the rest of her days. A light clearing in the forest emerged, just large enough for a tent, but not large enough to draw attention. A University had set up a preservation center just two miles east and she didn’t want them to find her on accident. She didn’t want to be drawn into their plans, or questioned about her presence.

She just wanted to be alone.

***

Coel had been so preoccupied with his arrangements that he hadn’t eaten since the landing. He needed nutrients and fast. All that he had read about planet Earth had sent him on a wild hunt for something called a deer. A small calculation told him the animal would last him four days. He had already engineered his own fridge from rewiring some of the circuits in his old ship.

He crouched behind a tree, a homemade bow and arrow resting on his lap. He could hear it from at least five hundred feet away. It trotted through the woods, completely unsuspecting.

He shot up and pointed the weapon all in one movement. His finger flexed, the arrow ready to be released, but then—

His breath stopped halfway up his throat and his eyes flashed wide. He couldn’t believe what he stared at: a woman with long auburn hair, olive skin, but eyes the color of sapphires… Kaharan eyes.

He could hardly move being so transfixed with her: she, who had her arms wrapped around what should have been his dinner.

This saintly creature tilted her head, her cheek pressed against the side of the deer’s nose. Sweet song drifted from her pink lips, leaking into the air around her. She lifted her head, glancing up at Coel before he had a chance to realize that he had been exposed.

He dropped the bow and darted behind the cover of a hefty tree trunk, swiping a bead of nervous sweat off of his dark green forehead. He internally kicked himself for not engineering his disguise sooner. He didn’t know who this woman could be… but she had undoubtedly seen him.

***

Sarah couldn’t have been sure of what she had seen. Her eyes flashed open to the quiet darkness of the inside of her tent. The black air pressed down on her like a cold blanket. She flipped her flashlight on and slipped the small canvas out of her backpack.

Her hands moved, guided by the vision in her head of that strange creature she couldn’t have even been sure that she had seen. When he gazed at her with those emerald eyes, she had never felt more transfixed. His stare wrapped her in its hold as her fingers flickered across the page.

A thin tear slipped down her cheek as she tried to convince herself that this godlike being could not have been real.