The Commander waved Temek away as he made his way to the bedroom door. He stopped and took a deep breath before walking into a war zone. Not a thing was left in its place. If it was breakable, it was shattered into pieces everywhere. If it wasn’t, then it was used to help break that which was. He walked into his room and stopped just past the threshold and looked around.
In the corner, on the floor, was a human woman. She wasn’t crying; she was fuming. As she stood up, she grabbed a heavy trophy and ran to Nayven screaming. She lifted her hand and tried to bludgeon the alien with the heavy item.
The Commander smiled and almost laughed as he grabbed the item out of her hand, dropped it to the floor, and wrapped his arms around her so that she was pinned to his chest. “Woman, I told you before I wouldn’t hurt you. I am going to take good care of you for the rest of your life.”
“Then why did you shoot me before kidnapping me?” she yelled into his chest.
He looked down at her. “You remember that?”
“Of course I do! You moron! Now…let…go!” She screamed between each beat of her head against his chest.
“I am sorry, I had hoped you would not have remembered. I couldn’t leave you there. It was too dangerous. You are much safer here with me. Don’t you feel the pull to me?” He scrunched his forehead as he looked down at her upturned face.
“No, I don’t feel anything other than hate for you. Where am I? Why couldn’t you leave me alone? I want to go home.” She pounded her head against his chest one more time and then stopped due to the headache she had. His chest was about as hard as marble.
He walked her out of the disaster area and into the kitchen. She sat down at the table as he made her a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. PB&J was thought to be an Earth delicacy and the Commander always picked up the ingredients to make these sandwiches on his way home.
“Why are you making a PB&J?” The woman took the sandwich from Nayven.
“What is your name? I can’t keep calling you ‘woman’.”
“My name is Janna. What is yours?” She felt she might as well play along until she could find a way out of this. Little did she know, she was in space.
Chapter Six
“Voken to Commander Nayven.”
“Nayven here.” He put his finger up to quiet Janna. She looked at him with wide eyes and wondered who he was talking to. She looked around and couldn’t find anyone in the apartment. She believed they were still on Earth, in his apartment.
As she listened to him speaking into thin air, she realized he was speaking a foreign language. One she had never heard before. She wondered if it was Russian. Had the Soviet’s attacked? Her heart rate increased and she was fidgety as she considered the options.
“I will be right there. Send Temek back to keep an eye on my mate.” Janna had no idea what was said.
“Janna, I am the Commander of this ship. I am needed on the bridge, so the warrior who was here earlier, will come back and help you settle in while I am away. I would recommend not entering the bedroom again. Or making another mess. I will have to get the cleaning droid to come and clear all of the breakables away before we enter that room again.”
“Did you say ship? Are we in the ocean? Which ocean?” Her lips were trembling as she thought she might be on her way back to Soviet-occupied territory to be interrogated. What could they want with her? She was just a nurse. Even if she wanted to talk, she had nothing they could possibly want to know about. Unless they wanted to know how the cardiovascular system worked, that was about all she could tell them. Or maybe the differences in blood types? She was only a nurse for crying out loud! They should have taken a doctor if they needed medical help.
“How about we discuss that when I get back.” He stood up and made his way to the living room. “Janna, you can have full access to our quarters, but you may not leave these rooms. It won’t be safe for you out in the corridors of my ship. Not everyone knows you are to be my mate. Until such time as you accept your place and everyone on board knows who you are, you must stay here or be accompanied by me, or Temek. Do you understand?”
“ Am I on house arrest?” Her eyes grew large as what he said clicked. “We…you and I.” She pointed between the two of them. “Are to live here in the same apartment… together?” Her hand went up to cover her mouth. Women in this day and age may have jobs and even serve in the US Army, but they do not share living quarters with men. Well, not unless they are “women of the night”. She certainly wasn’t one of them.
“Do not worry, we will not share a bed. Once the bedroom is cleaned it will be yours until you agree to mate with me.”
She sat down on the couch, needing to catch her breath.
Temek showed up, walked into the room, and smiled at her. “You won’t be throwing any more breakables at me, will you Ma’am?” He kept his distance.
“I…Well, that is to say, I will be good, for now.” She used both of her hands to smooth the front of her white dress and try to compose herself.
“Janna, I will return soon. Don’t worry, you are safe here.” The Commander walked out the door and headed to his bridge.
When Nayven walked onto the bridge, his Science Officer stood up. “Sir, another group of soldiers has arrived at the site. It does appear that most are sticking to the story of the crashed weather balloon. However, there are a few who remember everything. So far, their leaders do not believe them.”
“Yes. Janna, my mate, remembered everything as well.” He looked at Sopok. “Did we get that tower the QT’s left here?”
“Yes, Sir. It is in the holding bay” Sopok responded.
“What about the rest of the QT’s who were on the planet when the shipped crashed? Have we located them?”
“Yes, we just beamed them to the Beta cell block interrogation room. Our warriors discovered them as they tried to make their way to their crashed ship. They are currently unconscious and a team is headed there now.”
“Is Zelork heading that up?”
Voken sat back down and responded, “Yes, Sir. He left the bridge only moments before you arrived.”
“Excellent, be sure to scan the planet for any more of those towers and then go and get each and every one of them. I don’t want any advanced technology left on this planet. I will be in the holding cells, observing the interrogation.” The Commander turned and walked to the holding cells where three QT soldiers were being prepped for questioning.
Epilogue
Paris, Natalie, and Zelan were sitting in their lounge chairs watching the Commander tell his story. At least two hours had passed and they hadn’t interrupted him once. They were enraptured by his story.
“What do you think? Does the truth match up with what you learned growing up on Earth?” The Commander reached out for a bottle of water. After having talked for so long, his throat was dry.
“Wait, that’s it? What happened with Janna? What did they discover during the interrogation? Did they get all of the QT tech off our planet? Or out of our solar system? Don’t stop the story now!” Paris’s voice grew louder to match her exasperation with her mate for leaving off the good parts of the story.
“Paris, there are some things I cannot share. The details of the interrogation is one of those things. My grandfather did find all of the QT tech and removed it from your entire solar system. They had a few towers on Earth that watched what we did as well as spied on the humans. The war your planet fought was something that intrigued them so they continued to watch you to see how your people survived so much destruction and death.” The Commander stood up for the first time in over two hours and stretched.
Natalie shook her head and pursed her lips. “Alright, I can understand that. But what about the torpedoes? Why didn’t they work?”
“For two reasons. One is that our torpedoes didn’t deliver according to the engineers promises. The other, is that the QT’s had a new alloy we had not come into contact with before. We fixed that situation once my grandfather delivered the QT�
��s ship to our engineers.” The Commander winked at Paris.
“As for Janna, she became my grandma. They mated, as all couples do, within about three weeks after meeting. She did fight him a few times.” He chuckled as he remembered stories his grandparents told him when he was growing up.
“Whenever my grandfather would do something stupid, she would bring up how he shot her. She never did let him forget that one. I guess messing with her memories is what really upset her the most about the whole situation. She loved him fiercely, but she never let him forget about the day they met.” He smiled and chuckled again.
Paris loved to hear him laugh. She felt he never did it enough publicly. She went over and sat in his lap. “I am very glad you shared that story with us.” She kissed his cheek.
“How about you tell us your story over dinner? Tonight?” The Commander wrapped his arms around her and gave her a bear hug, or a Z’Girguan hug as he called it.
She pulled her head back. “How about I promise to tell you before your ship arrives?”
“Deal. I love you. You know you can tell me anything, right?” He put his forehead against hers.
“Yes. I know that. It is just that I hate to remember the details. My story isn’t as fun as yours. And it certainly doesn’t have a happy ending.”
“I think it does. You are here, with me. That makes it happy now.” Venay quickly kissed her cheek and stood up, holding her. “Alright, I am starved. Anyone else up for dinner?”
Everyone else agreed they were hungry and they all walked towards the center of the settlement to see what was available for dinner.
Natalie suggested, “How about chocolate chip pancakes for dinner? I feel like having something from home. What do you think?”
Zelan put his arm around her shoulders. “I love the idea.” He kissed her on the cheek and directed them all towards the pancake house.
The End
More About J.L. Hendricks
J.L. Hendricks is a new independent author. The Original Eclipse Series was her first published series.
Her latest series, Alpha Alien Abduction Tale, is a PG-13 version of the hot Alien Sci-Fi Adventure/Romance genre! She thought it might be fun to write in that world while still keeping it mostly clean for everyone to read. Because, let’s be honest, who doesn’t love a good alien abduction story?
She is very proud to have served in the US Army before she went to college. She decided to finally write, and finish a book, this year because of a few friends who encouraged her to do so. She hopes her stories entertain you and can bring a laugh on occasion.
Actually, it was her roommate's cat who talked her into staying at home to be her minion all day long! Pyper truly believes that J.L. is here to serve her alone, and to feed her whenever she graces J.L. with her presence.
Did you like Worlds Revealed? Then try Worlds Away, Book 1 in the Alpha Alien Abduction Tales series. You can find it here on Amazon. Worlds Away is the story of how Commander Venay abducted 200 people from Earth. It also tells how he convinced Paris to marry, or mate, with him. Worlds Collide, Book 2, is the story of Natalie and Zelan. Each book in the series will have an HEA before the book ends.
Genre: Dystopian
Light in the Dark by H.J. Lawson
Brooke leads two lives - a normal one during the day, and a dark one at night.
The weight of her secret life becomes unbearable and she has no choice but to share it. On Brooke’s eighteenth birthday she realizes that her mom is hiding the secret to protect them from something more terrifying than anything she could imagine.
Brooke’s world is coming to an end. The signs were there … but she wasn’t looking.
Chapter One
“Quickly, girls,” Mom says as she drags the bedsheets from my body. The cold of the night air washes over my feet. I must have kicked my socks off in the night, great! I’m going to have cold feet for the rest of the night. I quickly search under the bedsheet for my socks.
A metal bucket slams onto the floor, and the unwelcome swoosh of water fills my ears.
“Brooke, now, get in now!” Mom orders, in a panic as always.
“I can’t find Teddy,” Paige whines in the bed beside me as Mom tries to get her out of bed.
“I’ll get it,” I say, abandoning the idea that I will have toasty warm feet tonight. I’m now used to searching for things in the darkness when half awake. That’s not true; when Mom wakes me like this I’m no longer half sleep. I have to be ready for any change in her, ride the emotional wave that ripples through my mom, for all our sakes.
Mom breathes heavily. “Is Willow coming?” I ask.
“No, no, no, not now. She can’t, not now, the time is not right,” Mom says, like she has control over when my baby sister decides to come.
“Get in,” Mom says as she holds open the closet door.
“I don’t want to.” Paige pushes her little body up against the wall, clasping her hands around her knees. She’s the reason I can’t leave to go to college in the fall: she needs me
“Here’s Teddy.” I make the matted teddy’s head peek up over the bedsheets.
“Brooke, this is no time to play! They’re coming!”
“Well you try and get her in the closet.” Over the years I’ve become the only one to be able to get her in there. And each time I do, I hate myself for it. I’m becoming my mom, as crazy as she is.
Mom’s hands start twitching, like she’s typing on an invisible typewriter in the air. This is when her tension levels get the highest, and she’ll do anything to get us in the closet. I’ve got the scars as painful reminders. Those memories are locked away in a place darker than the closet.
The red numbers on the clock on the nightstand flick to the next second; time is ticking away. One minute past twelve o’clock, what a nice way to start off my birthday. Yippee for me. I knew she would do this today. The signs were there—all month we’ve had these nighttime alerts. Weeks, even months have gone by when Mom hasn’t had one of her outbursts. But she decides to make May her crazy month.
Paige’s big, soulful brown eyes lock onto Mom. Like me, she knows she doesn’t have much time to get into the closet.
“Come on, Paige, it will be okay. I’ll be in there with you.”
“And Mom?”
“She’ll be in the other closet.”
“She’s going to lock us in again, isn’t she?”
Mom starts chanting as she types, in nonsense words that sound like a demon is inside of her. I’ve actually wondered if there is a demon. I’ve searched for an answer to explain her behavior, and, well, it always comes down to the same thing: she’s crazy. And that’s why I can’t let anyone know, because they will send her away.
“You know she’s doing it because she loves us. It’s to keep us safe.” I repeat the words she’s told me for as long as I can remember. “She’s doing it to keep us safe.”
Paige gingerly moves towards me, and Mom’s chanting stops. I grab hold of Paige before Mom does, and scramble into the closet.
“Teddy,” Paige pleads, as I drop him in the hurry. I reach out from the closet to grab him, and the closet door slams on my hand.
I scream out as pain shoots down my arm and races back to my fingers. “My hand, my hand. Mom, you trapped my hand.”
The closet door opens a fraction and I pull in my hand and cradle it with my other hand. My eyes well up from the pain; another memory to lock away.
There is a clink from the door as Mom locks us in the closet.
“Teddy,” Paige sobs.
I wrap my arms around my little sister and let her sob. I silently do the same.
Chapter Two
The sound of water being thrown on the wood floor is the last indication that my mom is ready to leave our bedroom and go hide in her closet.
There used to be carpets in the bedroom, a dull pink if I remember correctly, but Mom took them up, leaving the wood because she said that it was harder for them to cross over the water. It somehow s
topped the shadow people, as she called them.
She covers the windowsills and the doorway to our bedroom. If for some crazy reason I’d forgotten about one of Mom’s ticks, I would walk through the puddle, soaking my socks. Not a great way to start the day, then again after one of her nights it was never going to be a good day. Me and lack of sleep aren’t the best of friends.
The door closes and I know my mom’s ritual is over. Now we have to wait until she lets us out of the closet, which is normally just after sunrise, ’cause the shadow people don’t like the sunlight. Mom told us. God knows what she will do when she decides that in fact they do like sunlight. Then my life is really over.
I gently hum into Paige’s ear; this normally helps to calm her down. When Mom’s in the closet with us, I’m not allowed to do it, we have to stay silent. She even wakes us if we snore.
Tonight, at least I can make Paige feel a little at ease. I don’t really know what’s going to happen once Willow is born—how can you stop a baby from crying? The mere thought fills me with dread, another kid having to go through this. I shouldn’t have let Paige go through it for so long.
The problem, other than that if I tell I will screw up the whole family forever, is that Mom will be put in a crazy institution. And, on the days my mom is herself, she’s the best mom a kid could ever want. She’s always been there when I need her. It’s like we have to put up with the night terrors in return for the good.
She never used to force me into the closet. It started when Paige was born ten years ago. I was eight then. Mom used to make it into a game, like nighttime hide and seek. She used to be able to keep Paige quiet in the night; maybe she will be able to with Willow.
Every day I fight with the idea of telling Dad, and I’m surprised Paige hasn’t already, but it’s like our secret, one which isn’t to be shared.
The Expanding Universe Page 38
