by Tammy Walsh
Conquered by the Alien
Fated Mates of the Titan Empire | 4
Tammy Walsh
Contents
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1. Prologue—Vicky
2. Dyrel
3. Vicky
4. Dyrel
5. Vicky
6. Dyrel
7. Vicky
8. Dyrel
9. Vicky
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Trapped by the Alien Sneak Peek
1. Prologue - Kal
2. Kal
Also by Tammy Walsh
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Prologue—Vicky
His lips begged to be kissed.
They sat there, teed up and ready to be attacked by my own yearning hunger.
Spots of water sat on them, dewy from the rain that drenched our clothes and splattered our hair and ran down our faces.
I barely even noticed it.
I didn’t think he did either.
We stood in a pool of warm yellow light that stretched across the grass like a heavenly spotlight.
I was falling desperately in love with this man.
Except, of course, he wasn’t a man at all.
He was a Titan.
He was big and broad across the chest. His soaked clothes clung to his muscles underneath. A smile danced on those impossibly mesmerizing lips.
Did he know he had me right where he wanted me?
Right where I wanted to be?
I was his.
If he wanted me.
Did he want me?
This wasn’t supposed to happen. We had a deal.
We were meant to pretend to be in love, pretend we would get married.
But somewhere along the line, I lost track of that goal.
Now I was floating, heading for a distant but powerful light on the horizon.
It was love.
Then he took me by the hand.
He had a misty look in his eye as he led me inside the shuttlecraft.
And I knew what was on the cards.
I wanted it to be on the cards.
We had a deal.
We were supposed to be arranging a fake marriage.
Fake love.
But there was nothing fake about the emotions tumbling around in my stomach.
Or the knowledge that it couldn’t last.
Dyrel
What a night!
Loud music.
Flashing lights.
Writhing half-clad bodies.
Alcohol.
Fights.
And that was only at the first party! It got a lot wilder after that.
The first party was at a regular club in the heart of the city. As a regular guest, I was ushered into the VIP section. Ettana got bored and suggested an underground rave on the other side of town in a disused temple.
The police tended not to enforce the law so strictly over there. We were out in the middle of nowhere and no one could be affected by the music, so what harm were we doing?
Enough to call the police, apparently.
Once the rave was shut down, we moved the party over into my apartment. I don’t know what time I went to sleep but I remember having drunken sex with Ettana… Vaguely.
The perfect end to a perfect evening.
Even better, this morning I had nothing to do but recover and prepare for another wild outing tonight.
Nothing to do…
I sensed there was something I was meant to do…
But what?
Something important, I seemed to recall. Something I shouldn’t have forgotten…
It wasn’t there.
It couldn’t have been that important if I couldn’t remember it, could it?
I smacked my lips. My throat was dry and sore. From all the shouting? The singing? The drinking?
The kissing?
My head felt like it’d been stuffed with cotton wool pompoms and a headache thumped at my temples.
My eyes opened like rusty garage doors. Did someone pour sand in them while I was asleep?
I peered at Ettana lying in the bed beside me. The bare skin of her leg showed and her big breasts lay pressed against my arm.
I sighed with satisfaction. Life didn’t get better than this.
The girl’s name was Ettana. She was my partying partner. We slept together sometimes. I slept with other partners too. Just as she no doubt did. It was nice to enjoy a different flavor from time to time.
I never strung anyone along. I always made it clear what the relationship was and what it wasn’t. They were always happy to go along with it. They enjoyed it as much as I did. Once they decided they wanted something else, something “more,” as they termed it, we ended the relationship as friends and went our separate ways.
No harm, no foul.
I saw Ettana more often than the others and not for the first time, I wondered if she was expecting something “more” from our relationship. She always denied it but I couldn’t help but get a sneaking suspicion she might. She was a lot of fun to be around. A good friend, nothing more.
I shut my eyes and let myself drift back to sleep.
Someone cleared their throat.
I turned my head in the direction of the noise. The room continued to sway even though my head had stopped moving. I shut my eyes, feeling sick to my stomach, and waited for the world to cease spinning.
“You shouldn’t be in here,” I said, unable to make out the fuzzy figure standing across the room. “This is my bedroom. You’re free to go to any other room you like.”
The figure didn’t move.
I squinted and tried to focus. I made out a sharp suit and a long, lean body. Even if I couldn’t see his face, I could have recognized his stiff gait anywhere.
“Hi Qat,” I said.
“Good morning, young master,” he said.
Qat was my mother’s butler and head of household. He rarely left her country estate except on important business matters.
Business matters…
It was only then I remembered the thing I was supposed to do this morning.
I was meant to visit Mom.
She kept her own small apartment in the city for important business or social events and needed a place to stay.
“Your mother wishes to see you,” Qat said. “You had an appointment with her this morning.”
He spoke in quick, sharp, clipped sentences. He wasn’t a man to waste words.
“Right,” I said.
I glanced at Ettana and worked my arm free. She mumbled something in her sleep and placed her face on the bedsheet. She didn’t wake.
Qat didn’t give her naked form so much as a second look. I’d never seen him blush my entire life. I covered Ettana with a sheet anyway.
“Tell her I’ll be right there,” I said. “I was… busy and had to take care of some things.”
I spotted my underwear on the floor. I swung my legs over the side and kept myself covered with blankets as I slid them on.
“I’m afraid that won’t be possible, sir,” Qat said.
I moved to the ensuite bathroom, the room still
spinning a little. I splashed some cold water on my face. I grabbed a toothbrush and scrubbed at my teeth as I leaned over the sink.
“Oh?” I said. “Why’s that?”
“She’s here, sir,” Qat said.
I froze with the toothbrush halfway through scrubbing my tongue. The toothpaste slopped out of my mouth and into the sink.
“She’s here?” I said.
I couldn’t think of anything worse.
My mom. Here. After a party I’d had the previous night…
Did everyone leave after the party? After I went to sleep? Or had they crashed the way they usually did?
It was too much to hope they’d gone home.
“She’s waiting outside?” I said.
“No, sir,” Qat said. I could swear there was a slight curling up of his lips. “She’s in the next room.”
My stomach fell and I felt the reaction to it immediately.
I spun around and fell to my hands and knees. I spewed into the toilet bowl, my whole body retching.
Funny, I thought. I can’t remember eating much last night.
I didn’t stop until my stomach was empty.
Qat handed me a towel.
“She’s waiting in the dining room, sir,” he said.
There was nothing my mother hated more than waiting. And nothing I wanted to do more than keep her waiting forever.
I showered and dressed. I moved in quickly, then slowly, reflecting my two desires. One, I didn’t want to make Mom wait any longer than necessary, and two, I really didn’t want to see her.
Not right now.
Not here.
But she wasn’t going anywhere.
I might as well ask the Zychaphian Mountains to move.
I placed my hand on the sliding door. To get to the dining room, Mom had to pass through it. I said a prayer.
Please tell me no one’s here.
Please tell me they all went home after the party was over.
Please tell me they cleaned up after themselves.
I knew the answer to those questions before I drew the door open, revealing the front room in all its majesty.
The tables were packed with alcohol and other substances I didn’t even want to think about. I never took that stuff but others evidently had.
Bodies lay across the sofas and floor. Most displayed too much skin. Others lay in puddles of their own sick. It might have been the site of a mass murder event.
The hologram TV was on, showing some tasteless Changeling TV show. It looked like the one they called Lovers’ Escape but I wasn’t sure. Just one partier was still conscious. He stared unblinkingly at the show.
“Can you do me a favor and clean up in here?” I said to him.
He just stared. At the TV? Into space? I couldn’t tell.
“Never mind,” I said.
I couldn’t think of a worse sight for my mother to see than the one before me right now. She was a high-class lady with fine sensibilities.
What was I going to say? I decided to tell the truth—it wasn’t like I could deny it. I would add a little twist or two to make it more palatable.
Qat stood beside the door that led to the dining room.
Where she was waiting.
He reached for the door handle but I raised a hand and shook my head. Qat lowered his hand. He was a good friend. Better than I deserved. He was always there for my mother and took great care of her.
But he couldn’t help me now.
Usually, I could get out of these situations by smiling and being happy and easing her worries and concerns. That wasn’t going to happen this time.
Not after all the other times…
I reached for the handle and happened to glance up.
I spotted Mom’s silhouette in the glass, created by sunlight reflecting off it. She was a small figure. Anyone looking at her would have thought her frail but she was anything but. She was strong. She needed to be when it came to running the family’s business empire my father left behind when he died.
I was supposed to step into his shoes when I came of age but that age of requirement just kept getting pushed back further and further. I was twenty-four years old and I was yet to come into my full inheritance. My mother kept dangling it in front of me and pushing it away.
“You’re not ready for it,” she kept saying. “You’re not mature enough yet. Soon, you will be ready.”
And I kept letting her down.
I took a deep breath, depressed the handle, and stepped inside the room.
“Mom!” I said, approaching her and wrapping my arms around her.
Her smile was tight, her eyes dark and calculating. She wore a fancy hat and a smart dress. She was getting on in years when she had me. Now, she was in her mid-sixties. She accepted my hug but didn’t hug me back.
I glared at the bottles and glasses of alcohol on the tabletop and set to tidying them away.
“Can I get you a drink?” I said. “Tea? Coffee?”
“No, thank you,” she said.
“Let me get rid of these and then we can talk,” I said.
“I don’t think that matters. I’ve been staring at them all morning.”
I faltered.
“You caught me by surprise,” I said. “I completely forgot about our meeting this morning.”
“I can see that.”
I couldn’t help but flinch.
“Leave the bottles and glasses,” she said. “I won’t stay long.”
At least that was a relief.
Unless…
I looked her over. I didn’t like the look in her eye. It was both harsh and disappointed. The last time I saw her wear an expression like that, I’d been involved in a small shuttlecraft accident. Okay, so it wasn’t small. I wrote the shuttle off. But no one was hurt. That was the important thing.
“I thought we agreed you were to stop having so many late-night parties?” she said.
“It was a birthday party for my friend,” I said, searching for a name. “Zyod. You remember him. You like him.”
“I didn’t see him out there,” Mom said. “Among the other bodies lying on the floor.”
“No. He had to… leave early.”
“From his own birthday party?”
“You know him. He’s always busy, taking off and doing his own thing.”
“And if I were to ask him, would he know what I was talking about?”
I blinked in surprise. She never called me out on my lies before.
“Uh, of course he would,” I said. “I can call him right now if you want.”
I scrambled to think of a way to send him a message without Mom knowing. He’d covered for me many times in the past but I’d always had plenty of time to prepare him for the coming onslaught.
“I wouldn’t want to bother him,” Mom said.
She let out a sigh and suddenly looked her age. She always looked youthful. She maintained a strict diet of healthy food and took no pills or supplements. The only exercise she undertook was keeping herself active. She never stayed in one place for long.
I felt sorry I was the one who made her worry.
“You gave me your word you would stop doing this,” she said. “I know it wasn’t easy losing your father at a young age but… well, many people lose loved ones the way you did. They have no choice but to continue on with their lives. They don’t have a rich family to support them the way you do. Or maybe that should be ‘enable’ them the way we do.”
“I’ll try harder,” I said.
“You’ve said that before,” she said. “Is this you trying harder now?”
I hung my head.
“You were supposed to take over the family business,” Mom said. “I’m getting old and can’t keep doing it. The board is already breathing down my neck about finding a replacement.”
“A replacement? But I’m supposed to take over.”
“They want to hire someone with experience. I can’t say I blame them.”
It was a blow to the gut
. Although the start date kept getting pushed back, I always assumed I would eventually be the one to fill the position.
“I can do it,” I said. “I can run the company.”
Mom reached over and placed a hand on my arm.
“Dyrel, you can’t even look after yourself,” she said. “Never mind thousands of employees.”
I gritted my teeth.
“I can,” I said. “I’ll show you.”
Mom smiled at me.
“I know you can,” she said, “when you have this fire in your belly. It reminds me of your father. He was the same when he started the company and turned it into what it is today. It’s not a question of ability. It’s a question of will. You prefer to spend your days sleeping and your nights partying.”
I opened my mouth to argue but it was no good. She was right.
“And don’t tell me it was in aid of Zyod’s birthday party,” she said. “I swear, Zyod must have more birthdays than the emperor.”
Okay, so I might have used that excuse once or twice before.
“You need to get on with your life,” Mom said. “You have everything you could ever want. Money, a good job waiting for you… but you’re not interested, are you? Instead, you prefer to waste your time with layabouts and ne’er-do-wells.”
“They’re my friends,” I said with less heat than I intended.
“No, they’re not. They’re hangers-on and temporary acquaintances. The moment you stop hosting these parties, they’ll stop showing up.”
We’d had many versions of this conversation over the years but it had never felt so serious.
“I’ll stop having these parties,” I said.
“You’ve said that before,” Mom said.
“I mean it this time.”
Oops. That meant I didn’t mean it when I said it before. It was true but she didn’t need to know that.
Mom searched my face and leaned back in her chair. She nodded her head as if what I said confirmed her fears.
