Fatal Alien Affection
Natasha House
Books by Natasha House
Rebirth of the Prophesy Series
Fatal Alien Affection
Fatal Alien Attraction
The Jade Series
Curse of the Dragon (Coming Soon July 2016)
Touch of the Dragon (Coming Soon)
Rebirth of the Dragon (Coming Soon)
Copyright © 2016 by Natasha House
All rights reserved. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author/publisher
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Café House Publishing
This book is dedicated to all my fans
Chapter 1
A cry woke Jonathan from a dead sleep. A crackling noise filled the small one room hut, making his mother stir. The little moonlight that filled the room illuminated her blonde hair that was a tangled nest about her face; her normal calm disposition filled with instant dread. Flickers of blue light shadowed the area in eerie images that made Jonathan’s mind go instantly into nightmarish thoughts.
“Jonathan,” whispered his mother, her voice catching. He slid his feet out of bed, the touch of the wooden floor cold against his bare toes. He was going on twenty and had adopted the role of protector of his family. Jonathan held a finger to his lips, even though his mother and two younger brothers probably couldn’t see what he was doing. Strangled cries came from outside, making his chest tighten with anxiety. He pressed his ear to the wooden door, carefully listening to what was happening beyond. You know what it is…
A shock of fear struck him, and for a moment he felt like all his limbs were frozen. The creatures from the sky, those who’d taken over the Earth hundreds of years ago, were attacking their village. Since the initial invasion village after village had fallen. Jonathan’s fingers curled around the spear his father had made last year before he’d been killed by a pack of wolves. He continued to press his ear against the door, his muscles growing taut.
“I’ll be right back,” he said in a hushed voice as he stood in front of the door.
“Citizens,” his mother said in a whisper. Her skin grew sickly white as she gathered her two younger boys close to her side. Jonathan fought against the need to stay and protect his family. What would Dad want me to do? He looked at the helpless expressions on his family’s faces and clenched his jaw. I can’t just leave them here.
“Get under the bed,” he said in a harsh whisper. His mother scrambled to do what he said, dragging his younger brothers under with her. His family now hidden from view, Jonathan looked around the room to find somewhere he could hide himself. He heard screams next door and he felt his body tighten with dread. We are going to get captured. He spotted a cluster of cloaks hanging in the corner and ran to hide behind them. A low thud sounded outside, and Jonathan’s mind painted images of the blue-skinned aliens known as Citizens. A group of Citizens known as Guardians worked for a company called Human Co; it was their job to hunt down and capture humans in the wild. The nearly seven foot winged aliens were far too strong and fast to out run or fight.
“No matter what happens, remember I love you, boys.” He heard his mother’s desperate whisper from beneath the bed. Jonathan sucked in a deep breath as the door creaked open. As if a death shroud covered the entire space, he felt the presence of the alien enter the room. He heard a low chuckle as if the creature was amused that they were trying to hide for their lives.
“Come out, come out, little humans…I know you’re there.”
Jonathan cringed, his fingers still tightly curled around the spear. What good was it though against a creature such as this? He heard a crackle, and even through the cloaks he could see a blue glow lighting up the room. An ominous feeling filled his entire body. We’ll be seen. Rather than be plucked out like a helpless lamb, he stepped out from behind the cloaks. Spear in hand, he stood ready to fight no matter the cost. If he could get the alien away from his family, he didn’t care if he was taken.
“Ah…You are a rare looking one.” The creature’s eyes lit up at the sight of him, a flame dancing in the Citizen’s blue, webbed hand. With dark red hair, green eyes, and what his mother had told him was Irish skin, he probably was strange looking to the creature. “You will be a collector’s item.” The Guardian threw him a smirk as he took a step forward. Jonathan lowered his spear, eyes narrowing.
“It’s rather hilarious how you humans think a stick will defend you.” The Guardian’s wings snapped out, filling the room with a translucent black and blue leathery substance. A sick, twisted expression filled the thing’s face. “You’re just embarrassing yourself now, dog. If you come quietly less damage will be done to your beautiful skin.” Again, a smirk spread across the Guardian’s face. “We like our merchandise flawless.”
Jonathan’s body moved fluidly, years of training kicking in. He saw the look of shock on the creature’s face. The spear came up and toward the Guardian’s chest. The Citizen took a step back just in time, the sharp tip grazing his black tunic-like clothes. Instead of growing angry the creature just laughed.
“You got some spirit. I underestimated you, red dog.” The Citizen moved with quick speed to stand in front of him, his webbed fingers cold against Jonathan’s throat. “Perhaps a red dog isn’t worth my time—even if you are pretty.”
Jonathan gagged, his fingers loosening from the spear. It clattered unceremoniously to the floor, making wooden chips fly. The Citizen lifted him off his feet, his body a rag doll in the air.
“Please!” a desperate cry rang out. The Citizen’s head turned toward the bed, a deranged smile spreading.
Jonathan’s mother climbed out, her face a mixture of pain. “Please…take me…leave my son.”
The Citizen eyed her up and down. Soft blonde hair, blue eyes, and a shapely figure for a forty-year-old woman. “Very nice indeed.” A cold laugh filled the room. A breath passed and a whimper came from beneath the bed. No! Be silent! Jonathan thought. The Guardian’s eyes snapped downward. He dropped Jonathan and dragged his two younger brothers, screaming, from beneath the bed. His mother fell on her knees.
“Please! Please just take me. Leave my boys! Please!”
Another shadow filled the doorway, the blue flame from the first Guardian making the features of the second alien look nightmarish. The creature stepped inside, his black leathery wings stretched out around him, his black tunic-like clothes hanging around his legs. In his hand was an overly large weapon called a tranque gun. The aliens used the guns to capture humans without seriously damaging them.
“Leave the younger ones,” a short-haired alien commanded the first. “We’re wasting time.”
Jonathan managed to get to his feet, tenderly touching the portion of his neck where the Guardian had held him. The first Guardian raised his hand toward his younger siblings, crackling blue lightning gathering on his fingertips.
“No, please, they’re just children!” his mother cried. Everything slowed down as the Citizen laughed, shooting a bolt of crackling fire at his two little brothers. Jonathan’s body instinctively moved forward. A blur passed in front of him nearly knocking him off his feet. His mother threw herself between the alien and his siblings.
/> Before Jonathan could react, the blue fiery-lightening hit her chest. With a sizzzz her body slumped to the floor, smoking.
“No!” He ran toward her and bent over her form. His brothers grabbed for their mother’s burnt body. Several more blasts erupted from the alien’s hand cutting off their cries. Something cold grabbed Jonathan and dragged him back from the carnage.
“Moy, you dog! She was good merchandise!” The short-haired alien’s face twisted in displeasure. “You should have known she’d try to protect her young.”
The hulking Citizen turned on Jonathan, a dark smile crossing his face.
“You want to join them?”
An empty sucking feeling filled Jonathan’s heart—it had all happened so fast he didn’t even know what to feel. His family’s smoking bodies lay curled on the floor. Cold fingers snaked around his chest and pinned him down on his back. A sneering face leered in front of him.
“If you want to join them, I’m game.”
“You’ve ruined enough merchandise for one day,” the commander said, shoving the first Guardian aside. He picked Jonathan up by the front of his shirt. “This one should catch a fair price.”
Jonathan’s entire world crashed around him. He was forced from the only home he’d known his entire life, his family a smoldering death cloud behind him.
Chapter 2
The sunshine caressed Zahara’s skin; a warm glow cast through the branches of the trees above her. The smell of the woods always made her think of mushrooms. Every year she’d take out her little brother, Ray, into the woods and they’d make a day of hunting the delicacies for their mother to cook up later. She bunched her long blonde hair and tied it off her neck. She stood in the center of the woods inhaling as deeply as possible, closing her blue eyes. Zahara’s mother had always told her she had the face of a pixie—an ancient myth of humans long ago. The men in the village had been chasing after her since she’d bloomed into a woman. Her mother had been pressing her to settle down for the last two years. Girls typically got married at age sixteen and she was eighteen now. She had a hard time wanting any of the men in her village. Most had the intelligence of a rock.
She wanted a man who could think for himself and she didn’t have to point out the obvious. Plus, something burned inside her, something deeper than just marrying and contributing to the population. Why have children at all? They only end up as slaves. The thought left her feeling unsettled. She knew several women in her village near birth, and she could feel their judgmental stares for not helping the tribe grow. There were one or two men that had been trying to convince her to marry them for years—offering her a lifetime of smelly laundry and cooking. Like that was flattering. She had an image of the perfect man in her head, and none of them came close to matching it in the slightest. Whoever he was he needed to have hope that they could defeat the aliens one day—someone with a backbone.
A flutter of birds filled her peripheral vision startling her momentarily. Her skin prickled, and she turned around sharply, pulling out her hunting knife her father had given her. Nothing was there, but still she couldn’t shake the ominous feeling that was spreading in her gut. She briefly thought of her little brother Ray. He should be back at home. Something felt off. Her heart slowly picked up speed. A cold feeling trickled down her neck.
Run!
The urge was so strong that she jolted forward. She could hear the flutter of wings, but something else filled the atmosphere. Air caught in her throat as she hid behind a large tree, her eyes going upward. A cluster of the blue-skinned aliens were flying high above her, and the rumble of one of their vehicles was making the ground quake.
Ray! She gripped her hunting knife, eyes wide. She looked at the weapon, realizing how small it was and how big the bat-winged creatures were. Pull yourself together, Zahara. You can’t just let them win. Her mouth turned into a determined line, her body bristling. An animal instinct took over, and she ran toward her village, her blonde hair a wild mess around her face. She got to the edge of the woods to see the creatures dragging the villagers out of their homes and loading them up into one of their vehicles.
Heart pounding she assessed what was going on. There was no way she could jump into that without getting captured. She saw two, seven foot creatures go into her parents’ hut. They dragged her entire family out, her little brother clinging to her mother’s waist, screaming in terror. Something gut punched the air out of her lungs. “Ray,” she whispered as she felt his anguish. Her eyes were locked on her family as the two Citizens tried to pry Ray off her mother. Anger boiled in her blood. Flashes of steel caught her eye—knives appeared in both her mother and father’s hands. They plunged them into each other’s chests, pulling one another close for a final kiss, dark stains spreading.
“NO!” Horror at what she was witnessing consumed her. No…no…no. How could they do that? How could they just leave Ray like that? She remembered hearing her parents whisper at night, and she’d catch words like Citizen and death. But she had no idea they’d rather die than be an alien’s slave. Where was their fight? Something burned in her chest. Hatred. Not just hatred at the creatures that had destroyed her entire world—but her parents for taking the easy way out. The Guardian stared with disgust at her mother and father as they slumped to the ground.
“Weren’t you watching them?” one of the creatures said to another, kicking at the bodies of her parents.
“What about the boy?” A blond-haired Guardian grabbed Ray by the scuff of his collar.
“He’s useless to us. Destroy him or leave him, it doesn’t matter to me.”
Ray continued to scream, reaching down toward the bodies of her mother and father. Zahara had never felt such pain in her entire life. What do I do? What do I do? Her hands quaked as she stared at the scene before her.
“He’s getting on my nerves.” The Guardian sneered at Ray, raising a hand toward him, crackling energy bouncing.
Zahara felt something snap inside of her.
“Get your hands off him!” She bolted from her hiding spot, plunging herself in front of her little brother. The creature made a strange scoffing sound.
“You humans aren’t very bright are you? Is this your coward family?” He pointed to the bodies of her parents, a dark smirk on his face. “I suppose one is better than nothing.”
Zahara’s hunting knife soared through the air. The Citizen let out a startled gasp as the tip of the blade caught him in the shoulder.
“Ah! You crazy little dog!” He moved out of her range as she swiped at him with the knife again. She heard a scoffing laugh as the other Guardian watched. Zahara shifted directions, slicing at the first alien’s wings. She caught some of the leathery substance with the blade, and the thing let out a grunt of pain.
“You got yourself a little fighter, eh, Moy? Let’s see what she can do.” He crossed his arms, amused by the fight. “This is almost as good as the Quarry. Come on, Moy, she’s just a little girl.”
“Shut your filthy mouth,” Moy said, his shoulder clearly smarting from the knife’s dig, his right wing folding from the wound. His eyes suddenly turned to Ray. “I know how to kill a little girl’s spirit.” A blue ball of crackling energy materialized in his webbed hand. Zahara saw it a split second too late. It soared toward Ray, the air around it filled with blue sparks, lighting up her brother’s face for one moment before striking him.
Ray’s scream filled Zahara’s mind. She watched as if in slow motion her nine-year-old brother’s body slumped to the ground, smoke sizzling off his chest. His screams intensified. Another three blasts silenced him. Every ounce of her fight drained from her. A suffocating feeling filled her chest as she watched the last member of her family die in the dirt. The knife clattered from her hand.
Chapter 3
Jonathan woke with a gasp, sweat drenched across his chest. He’d had the same nightmare again, but the worst part was that he knew it wasn’t a nightmare. His mother and two brothers were really dead,
and he’d been brought to a giant warehouse along with the rest of the humans who’d been captured from his village. That had been nearly two weeks ago now. A memory played in his subconscious.
He’d been shoved through the door, along with several other villagers. Scared. His security of home shattered. They’d been corralled forward, the Guardians laughing as they pulled the handmade clothing off each of the villagers. Shame burned his cheeks as the other slaves in the warehouse openly stared at them.
“Two at a time!” A Guardian stood outside a glass door, where Jonathan could see metal objects stuck to the walls. Two at a time the humans went in, where they were sprayed all over with a strange smelling fluid. When he was forced through with a woman he tried his best not to look at her. He let out a small groan as the blast struck his bare skin—a burning tingling feeling making his teeth clench. After that the Guardians had given each one of them a tunic to wear and assigned them a cot. Women on one side. Men on the other.
What had woke him from his nightmare had not been the nightmare itself, but a strangled cry from across the room. Several women and men were being led toward the sanitizing chamber. The Guardians must have raided another village shortly after his. The room filled with the thick suffocation of hopelessness.
The creatures corralled the new humans, sparking little balls of energy at their feet, making them tremble in fear of being burned. His heart twisted in his chest at the sight. He knew everyone else in the warehouse was watching as well. They always did. Every time a new human or a group of humans were brought in, it was as if the Guardians put on a show to prove that they had power over all of them. Despite the group of over fifteen slaves, his eyes were drawn to a blonde girl whose face was completely void of emotion. One of the Guardians, who he knew by the name of Moy, grabbed at the girl’s ragged dress, pulled it off in tatters, and let it flutter to the ground before all the men in the warehouse.
The girl didn’t flinch. The other Citizens ushered the rest of the humans over to the other side of the warehouse, but Moy stared the girl down. Why is he degrading her? Jonathan’s heart panged in his chest. Moy was getting sick pleasure knowing the girl was being shamed in front of everyone. The blonde girl continued her blank stare, refusing to react to Moy’s antics.