Mating Rights (14 page)

“I thought bacon would
awaken you,” Jaxon said, sitting down on the bed beside her.
She tried to sit up, but couldn’t. Jaxon’s arms went
around her and lifted her up, settling her back against the pillows.

“What has happened?”
she asked, feeling sore but amazingly whole despite the ordeal she’d just
suffered.

“You’ve been asleep for
three days.”

She blinked. “I have?”

He nodded. “Healing. I
thought you’d never wake up. Bacon is better than any smelling salts known to
man.”

Mali chuckled, though
she thought she sounded more like a meat grinder. She coughed and gratefully
took a cup of warm, sweet tea. The liquid energized and soothed her sore
throat. “What happened? I remember being beaten.”

Jaxon handed her a
plate of crisp bacon. “You survived the gauntlet. Kimber gave you an extra push
at the end, as did Angelica. I was surprised, but she seemed impressed with
your fortitude. I never figured she’d have a soft spot in her. You chose me as
your mate and collapsed.”

“I did?”

He frowned. “Did you
make a mistake?”

She smiled, ducking her
head. “No.”

“Good, because I’ve
laid claim to you. You are mine and no other may have you. I’ve been waiting
for you to wake up so we can make this official. I am too old to wait any
longer on children.”

Mali laughed and held
her hands up for mercy. “This is too much too fast. I never expected you would
agree to the match. What of Jen? Your first love.”

He sighed and stopped
his advance on her, sitting back on the foot of the bed and crossing his arms
over his chest. He looked like a petulant grown man, and it made her smile. How
she adored her ornery old wolf!

“Jen was puppy love; a
dream. You are real, and here and now. I will not have it any other way. I
dunna how else to say it.”

“Say what?” she asked.

He growled, pushed her
plate of untouched bacon to the side and made her drop tea on the floor with a liquid
clatter. Jaxon grabbed her and held her to his chest, raining kisses on her
forehead and cheeks, and the corners of her mouth until she was
breathless—laughing and crying.

“I love you, Mali. You
are mine and I am yours.” He stopped and looked into her eyes. “We were fated
to be together, if you can get over your foolish pride as I have mine.”

She sighed, touching
the scars on his cheeks and brushing his long brown hair back. “Are your wounds
healed then?”

“Only with your loving
touch,” he murmured.

“You may have it and my
heart forever, Jaxon,” she said, and turned her face up for his kiss. He kissed
her slowly, savoring her mouth for what seemed an eternity. Finally, he pulled
away and smiled at her, and for the first time, she could see true happiness in
his eyes.

“We must go back and
have you properly meet my mother and father,” she said.

Jaxon’s right eyelid
twitched and his smile fell. “Your father is going to kill me,” he groaned,
much to her amusement.

Mali, laughing, nodded.
“Indeed he will.”

The
End

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Read
an UNEDITED excerpt from Captured by Aliens 3: ALIEN INTENT:

Chapter
One

The phone rang above
the explosion happening on the television.

Jasmine Gray and Samara
Brooks startled from their lounge on the overstuffed couch. Samara paused their
movie. “Someone always calls when we get to the good part,” Samara said.

Sitting up, Jasmine
scooped the phone off the coffee table and looked at the screen. She rolled her
eyes and looked at Samara as the phone continued to ring. “It’s Cyndy.”

“What the hell is she
calling this late for? She always goes to bed early,” Samara said, looking
vaguely concerned. It was eleven o clock at night, and they all had to go in to
work by eight.

“Guess I better answer
it. It might be an emergency.” Jasmine swiped her finger over the phone and put
it on speaker. She propped an elbow on her knee. “Hey. What’s up?”

“Jasmine? Omigod. The lights
are back. You’ve got to come right now,” Cyndy said. Her voice sounded strained
and abnormally high-pitched. “I’ve been watching them move over the city for
the past fifteen minutes. Something’s going on. I know it.”

Samara sat up on the
edge of the couch.

“Cyn, we’ve got work
tomorrow. I cain’t come this late. And you know I hate that road in the
dark--,” Jasmine began, but Cyndy cut her off before she could finish making an
excuse.

“If you love me, you’ll
come. Bring Samara and her camera. Tonight’s the night. I’ve been watching the
lights dance like lightning.”

“Just use your phone
and we’ll look at it in the morning—“

“My resolution isn’t
worth shit. I need high quality res and you know it. I’m not going to the media
with fuzzy, crap video. Get your asses over here now. I’ll be outside waiting
on you,” Cyndy said and hung up.

“She’s losin’ her
damned mind up there on that mountaintop by herself,” Samara griped. “What kind
of dad leaves his kid a house out in the boonies?”

“One that wants his
daughter single?” Jasmine growled and stood. “Anyway, she ain’t got any other
friends. Let’s go see the
aliens
so we can hurry up and come back to
bed.”

“Yeah,” Samara said as
she walked off to retrieve her handheld digital camera before joining her
cousin to leave the house.

The pitch black night
didn’t seem to have a single star in the sky to illuminate their way as Jasmine
drove the long winding road up to Cyndy’s house. Heavy cloud cover smeared the
black sky with smudges of grey.

The headlights and
reflectors in the middle of the ribbon of road were the only sources of light
for miles. Jasmine grit her teeth as the car buffeted from a gust of wind that
whipped the close crowed trees.

Narrowing the higher
they drove, branches scraped alongside the door like fingernails on chalkboard.

“There goes the paint
job,” Jasmine grumbled, turning onto the ruts marking Cyndy’s driveway.

“It’s probably not that
bad. Damn. This place gives me the creeps,” Samara whispered, giving a visible
shudder as she looked out the window. “Should we see the houselights by now?”

“I thought so.” Jasmine
glanced at her cousin and quickly returned her eyes to the road. Forced to
drive at a snail’s pace for fear of bottoming out in a rut, she hadn’t noticed
the darkness continued right up to the house.

“Didn’t she say she’d
be outside?” Samara asked.

Jasmine stopped the car
beside Cyndy’s in front of the house. They both got out of the car and tread
carefully up to the dark porch.

Samara hugged her arms
around herself as Jasmine knocked hard on the door.

“Cyndy?” Jasmine
called, punching out a beat with her fist.

“Doorbell,” Samara
said, pressing the button. Nothing happened. “I’m officially freaking out now,”
she said, looking at Jasmine.

“Is the power out?”
Jasmine wondered, stepping off the porch when her knocks went unanswered.

The tree canopy rustled
in a swift wind, reminding Jasmine of scuttling beetles. The urge to shiver
caught her as curly tendrils of hair wrapped around her face. She tucked her
hair behind her ear and listened to the wind howl like a banshee.

“It’s only been like
forty minutes since she called,” Samara said. “Let me try to call her.” She dug
her phone out of her pocket. The screen blinked on, a blinding rectangle in the
darkness.

Jasmine nodded. “I’m
going to try the back,” Jasmine said, using her phone to light the way as she
rounded the house to the back door.

The wind speed picked
up, blowing leaves around her sneakers. Jasmine’s phone flickered off just as
she reached the back porch. “Fuck,” she said, swiping the screen to turn it
back on.

Her phone died. She
must’ve forgotten to charge it and hadn’t noticed. It usually ran out of juice
by this time of night.

Shrugging, she slid the
phone into her jeans and turned to the back door to knock.

“Jasmine!” Samara
yelled, her voice growing louder as she ran around the house. “I just saw
something in the sky right as my phone died.” Samara stopped by her cousin,
visibly shaking despite the darkness around them.

“What?” Jasmine turned to
step off the porch, but Samara grabbed her.

“Don’t go out there,
please!”

She shrugged her off.
“I’m sure it’s just stars. Or a satellite.”

“Uh uh.” Reluctantly,
Samara followed Jasmine to the clearing in the back yard. They both looked up
at the sky. Clouds churned overhead, sometimes moving enough to reveal the
night sky.

Samara pointed up.
“There! You see it? That yellow light! Omigod. There’s three of them now.”

“Pfffff. No—oh, shit.
What is that?” Jasmine squinted at the sky through an opening in the clouds.
Sure enough, three yellow stars formed a line.

“That’s Orion’s belt,”
she said, drifting off as one of the dots jumped straight up and disappeared
from sight. A second yellow ball rotated to the right, forming a ninety degree
angle, and then it too blinked and shot up. The last light remained stationary
and then began to grow larger, coming closer to them.

Panic shot through her
veins. Her heart made a painful thud in her chest. Hairs rose on the back of
her neck.

“Get in the house. Now,
Samara,” Jasmine said in a voice chilled by fear.

Spinning on their
heels, they ran through the clearing towards Cyndy’s house. Before they could
cross the short distance the glowing orb reached them.

Nothing should move
that fast, Jasmine thought. Her heart raced but her mind felt sluggish as
adrenaline flooded her brain. Dimly, she heard something mechanical, like ball
bearings screeching through a metal shaft. The grayish blue night disappeared
under the onslaught of a yellow spotlight.

Samara screamed and
tripped, hitting the grass and sending debris flying. Was she crying? Samara
never cried. The air went still and all sound ceased save for the pulse
pounding in Jasmine’s ears.

Jasmine stopped to help
Samara to her feet and braved a look at the sky. Circles within circles of
blinding light caught her in a trance. She felt her mouth gape, her muscles go
lax. Frozen in place, she was helpless to do anything but watch as the light
swallowed her whole.

***

Consciousness returned
slowly, painfully. Her head hurt like a motherfucker. Jasmine groaned. Her eyes
shut tight, she rolled onto her side, gripping her head.

A cold metal floor
supported her weight, making her hip joints and back ache. In a fog, she
wondered if she’d been arrested and taken to jail.

“She’s waking up,” a
voice said. Cyndy’s voice.

“Wake up, cuz,” Samara
said, touching her arm.

Slowly, Jasmine opened
her eyelids, blinked a few times, and focused on Samara’s dark face hovering
above her. Just behind Samara stood Cyndy Perez. Above them both stretched a
silvered ceiling emanating a soft glow from its entire surface.

Jasmine sat up and
frowned at Samara. “Wh—what,” she croaked. Her mouth and throat were dry as the
Sahara. She wiggled her tongue trying to work up some moisture. “What happened
to your hair?”

Samara snorted and
grabbed her short locks. “Someone took out my weave. I guess aliens don’t like
extensions. Look at your nails.”

“Aliens?” Jasmine
asked, looking at her hands. Her manicure had grown out. The nail polish and
topcoat were near the top of her nail bed. “What happened?” she asked, looking
at Cyndy.

“We’ve been taken,”
Cyndy said, sitting beside her friend.

“We? Taken?” Jasmine
said, looking beyond Cyndy and Samara. The room they were in was filled dozens of
women—most of them of one ethnic variety or another.

“We’ve been taken by
aliens,” Cyndy elaborated.

Jasmine scooted back
and got to her feet. “Whoa, whoa whoa! How the hell would you know that?
Where’s the door out of here?”

“There is no door,” Samara
said, standing.

“Of course there’s a
door. You just haven’t looked hard enough yet. And what’s this shit about
aliens?” Jasmine pushed through the throng of women until she reached one wall.

“We’ve looked
everywhere. There’s no way in or out,” a petite Spanish girl said. “I’m Lupita,
by the way.”

“Jasmine,” she said,
touching the wall. The moment she did, a pulse of light shuddered beneath her
fingertips. An image flashed briefly on the wall like a television screen
turned on.