Flying in Spaceships with Aliens (Kilbus Lord Book 2)

by Erin Raegan

  The aliens that destroyed our world and slaughtered so many of us had shown me that.

  I didn’t know what kind of world was waiting for me. For all of us humans, but I knew it was just as vulnerable to all the unknown dangers we now knew were lurking in the universe. Nowhere was safe.

  I would not live my life terrified of everything. That was not living. I wanted to experience everything there was to this brand-new exciting universe. That was Killian, his humor and sweet words and impossible arrogance. His stupid big head was a big part of my life and that included his ship and his crew.

  The alien genie was out of the bottle now and there was no putting all those secrets back. Even if I’d wanted to, I couldn’t unknow what I knew now. Living on some brand-new world, sticking my head back in the proverbial sand was out of the question.

  I was dating an alien. I’d just had sex with that alien. And I may even love that stupid alien and so help me I was going to make him listen to me even if I had to tie him down.

  His life was now my life. Stupid scary pirating and all.

  And if he refused to listen to me, then he would have to drag me kicking and screaming from his ship. Because if this was what he was meant to do then I wouldn’t be the reason he gave it up.

  We were a team. And my teammate needed a lesson in how to communicate.

  I couldn’t fall back asleep. I knew Killian was about to make my life more difficult. He had not been kidding about pissing me off every chance he could. He’d wasted no time at all making good on that promise.

  I left the room in a huff. My shredded gown looked ridiculous as I attempted to tie the lace back together in a pathetic attempt at modesty. It was hiked up to my upper thighs, the arms tied around my chest and waist to hold it all together. I was sweating just from the effort of salvaging it as I walked through the hall to the center room.

  Oren was glowering at the wall, his shoulders slumped dejectedly. He looked so forlorn I felt some of my anger drain away. “He’s an ass,” I announced, startling him—to my surprise. His mind must be really preoccupied. Not the norm for Oren.

  “That he is,” he said desolately.

  “Well,” I told him with false cheer, “it doesn’t matter because I won’t be listening to him.”

  Oren’s dry look told me how little conviction he had in me.

  “I can be very convincing,” I told him fiercely. “Killian won’t know what hit him.” Not when I got him on his back again.

  Oren chuckled then, his shoulders relaxing.

  “Where is he?” I asked, looking around the empty room. I knew an army of Kilbus were probably guarding my room right now but I still couldn’t believe Killian would go far while we were here. He’d been too worried about bringing me off the ship to begin with.

  Oren shrugged. “Festering in his poor decisions.”

  I held back a nervous laugh. Seemed mine wasn’t the only anger Killian would be feeling for a while. “I want to go back.”

  I was done sitting in this room waiting for him. If he wanted to go pout, he could come find me when he was finished.

  Oren shook his head though. “We leave when he returns.”

  I sighed, knowing he wouldn’t budge on this. As if Killian was all that would stand between me and danger and not an army of Kilbus. Killian needed to realize that I was safer with him and his crew than on a floating rock attracting alien races of all kinds.

  “Call him then,” I muttered. I needed to check in on my family. If it was so dangerous for me then it was for my family too. I wanted to get back to them. Killian had pranced me around this place, pissing on me to mark his territory. It had to be enough.

  “He—” A loud thump came from the hall. Oren looked that way, his words dying off.

  “—is back,” I finished for him, walking to the door.

  Oren grabbed my arm, pulling me back from the door. “No, that’s not him.”

  Another thump and then a shout.

  I looked at Oren nervously.

  His hand lifted, a little black box beeping. He pressed a button and screeches and shouts hissed through the unit. Oren’s other hand tightened on my arm.

  He looked at me, something close to fear in his eyes. “The Veel.”

  “What?”

  He pulled me from the room, practically running down the hall. “The Veel are here,” he tossed me into the bedroom I’d just laid in. “Hide.”

  “What?”

  “Hide,” he hissed again, slamming the door closed and dragging a large bench in front of it. He leaned it on its ends, slanting the long bench against the door and shoving his shoulder into the cushion, barring the door.

  I jumped when a loud crash came from the hall, running for the bed and rolling under it. It was taller than my bed at home had been. Nearly another person could have laid on top of me under it. Anyone who walked in that door would have been able to see me. I scooted to the back, curling up into a ball to try and hide.

  More crashes and shouts and then another loud bang came from up above us. I watched Oren from under the bed as his head shot up, gaping at the ceiling. “They’re coming,” he hissed to me.

  Why was it that every time something terrible happened near me, Killian was nowhere to be found? This was getting to be ridiculous.

  Oren had one weapon on him. A gun that shot no bullets. Just bright light.

  It might have only looked like light to me, but when he aimed it up to the ceiling and fired on the brown wormy looking thing crawling through the ceiling, it blasted a whole straight through it.

  Brown sludge popped and painted the ceiling and walls.

  I screamed. Then gagged.

  The body of the thing fell to the ground with a thump, inches from my face under the bed. The pudge of its brown torso twitched and I startled, scurrying back and away from it.

  Oren fired, again and again. Yelling for me.

  I gaped as more of the large worm things crawled into the room from the ceiling. Hole after hole being ripped open by their massive clawed appendages.

  One dropped onto the bed and I could hear it ripping at the bedding. I laid on my side, wide-eyed and trembling as fluffy padding started to rain down on me as it clawed straight through to the bed.

  Three glassy orbs looked down on me and I screamed again. It had a massive gaping mouth in a perfect circle shape, its razor teeth spinning in unison inside its mouth. Just the sound of the teeth clacking against each other sent shudders of disgust and terror through me.

  “Oren!” My voice was shrill, hurting my own ears. The thing roared into my face.

  Hands grabbed my thighs, yanking me from under the bed. I screamed again, smacking my captor.

  “Stop!” Oren shouted, wrenching me to my feet and thrusting me toward the door. “Go!”

  I stumbled over two limp goopy brown bodies as I tripped toward the door. Oren kept firing at the ceiling and behind us. I skidded to a stop, my back bouncing off his chest. They were clawing straight through the door. Oren spat a litany of curses and pulled me back and toward the wall on the far side of the room.

  I read the panic on his face and it only escalated my own to hysterical proportions. Those things were like worms or moles, nearly a dozen of them burrowing through the ceiling and walls.

  Then the floor beneath my feet trembled.

  Oren’s name barely made it out of my mouth in a piercing shriek before the floor below me gave way.

  He reached for me. His face horror stricken. But I was falling.

  It felt like I fell forever. My torn dress fluttering up to smack me in the face. But it was a short fall. I slammed into the ground, the wind blasting out of me in a rush.

  I groaned, my head throbbing as it bounced off of something thick and stiff. My ankle screaming in pain from where it smacked against the floor. I blinked away a blurry haze and looked up at the ceiling. The hole gaping there.

  A big brown worm looked down on me from the ceiling, its orbed gaze narrowing on me. Then it s
curried across the ceiling and to the wall.

  I could see Oren’s feet as he tripped around the edge of the hole. He was fighting something off as he shouted for me, one hand reaching down the hole for me but something kept pulling him back.

  Slick, pointed nubs grabbed me, sharp claws piercing my sides. I shrieked as it dragged me across the floor. My hands grappled for purchase, anything to stop my body from flying across the floor, but I was moving too fast.

  I looked down my body and saw one of the worm things had its wiggling wormy appendages wrapped around my waist as it slithered through the room and down a hall, so fast everything around me was a blur.

  My bare arms squeaked as they burned against the flying floor, my dress doing nothing to protect the rest of my body from the burn.

  I screamed for Oren.

  For Killian.

  No one came.

  My voice grew hoarse as I flew down hall after hall, my legs kicking and my arms swinging. Nothing I did stopped the worm thing from its course.

  More joined it. Three then four other giant worms, all of them wiggling their bulging bodies against the floor as they raced from the hotel place we were staying.

  Warm air blasted me in the face as we exited out a hole in the wall and out into the chaotic streets of the complex. Startled shrieks from the crowds of aliens hurt my ears, feet and other things scrambling to get out of the way as the worm dragged me down the pathway.

  I yelled for help.

  Shrieking and screaming until my voice grew hoarse but even when a very few aliens raced behind me, the worm was just too fast. They fell behind too quickly.

  I saw the balcony coming up at the end of the road and I gawked as the three worms ahead of me dove down right off of it. They weren’t slowing down.

  It was going to drag me right over the end.

  I thrashed against the grip, my fingers clawing at its slick skin in overwhelming panic. But it only tightened around me, my ribs quaking from the powerful grasp.

  Then it was too late. My hands bounced off the floor, my fingernails breaking right off as I tried to stop it.

  I flew right over the balcony, my stomach smashing up and into my throat.

  I fell so rapidly it took my breath right from me, my body airborne, nothing there to stop the fall.

  The worm made a weird bleating sound and its mouth caught on the metal wall, its spinning teeth slicing right into the metal and slowing our fall.

  It slowed, but my body flailed out of control, swinging down and slamming into the wall underneath it.

  I grunted, curling against the grip that held me now, holding onto it with everything I had. If it let go of me now, I would be falling five stories down with nothing to stop my fall. I would die.

  My curled body hung, tight with tension and terror as the worm grappled against the wall, its slimy body slithering down and dragging me with it.

  Inches from my face slamming into the floor, the worm spun again and dropped me onto its back as it let go of the wall and slithered down onto the floor.

  There was gunfire and shouting, an army of aliens now chasing after us, but the worm didn’t pay them any mind, slithering so fast across the floor I could barely see the hangar of ships around me.

  I saw them pass by in a blur and stupidly thought we were headed right to Killian’s ship, but the worm turned again and then dove down, a tunnel of pitch black in the floor.

  I had no idea where it was taking me and I couldn’t think past the pain of being dragged so fast and harshly but I knew it was really, really bad.

  If I didn’t get away soon, this thing was going to escape on some kind of ship. And once that happened, I likely would never be found.

  If I didn’t die first. This thing could just be dragging me to its den to eat me and a fresh wave of horror had me lashing out.

  My fingers bruised and burned as I tried to pry the grip off me.

  The hole grew narrower. My elbows and legs smacking against the walls of the hole. Cold metal battered my body from every side.

  Then bright light was blinding me and I was flying through the air again, dropping down and down.

  My body slammed against more metal and I looked down as a flat flying surface zoomed through a massive cavern. I turned just in time to see the worm smack against the edge of the platform, screeching as it tried to grip onto it and then it dropped, falling down and into the dark bottom of the cavern.

  I slid with it, my skin screeching again but hands grabbed for me and then the glint of a blade sliced the worm’s wriggling arm from around my waist, narrowly missing the skin of my waist.

  I lay there, panting. My heart threatening to burst from my chest it beat so hard.

  “Up,” a sinister voice hissed.

  I looked up into the bright lights of a ship above me. I was in a glass chamber, a tunnel of glass. On one side of me, above me, were the ships inside the hangar, their ends hanging out of the complex. On the other side was black space.

  I was under the complex, a winding glass tunnel below it.

  “Up,” someone hissed again.

  I tried to focus past the bright lights of the ship I was flying toward but fear and panic made thoughts hazy. I was unable to grasp what was happening from second to second.

  A dark shadow stepped in front of the light. I squinted, my hands coming up to block the glare as I looked at the alien.

  He was tall. Huge. His body a dark grey and covered in thick armor. A metal plating came from his skull to wrap around the sides of his face, obscuring his features from me.

  “I won’t ask again,” he hissed and reached for me. I scrambled away from him, my hair flying up as I nearly toppled over the edge of the flying platform.

  He hissed, grabbing me in an iron grip and tossing me to the middle of the platform. A cruel frown twisting his grey lips.

  “Who are you?” I gasped as he stepped over me, walking to some kind of control panel.

  “Quiet beast,” he growled blandly. “Speak to me again and I’ll cut your tongue from you.”

  I trembled as we flew through the tunnel.

  There was nowhere to go.

  Not unless I wanted to follow the worm, down into the endless black below me.

  I was stuck.

  Shit.

  Beast

  Theo

  The tunnel was a marvel. It had a ceiling and two walls, so wide I could barely see the sides, but it had no bottom.

  Something that became clear as we reached the end of the tunnel. The ship in front of me sat at the end of the tunnel, black space behind it. We spun in a circle, so fast, air slapped me in the face. And then we dropped. I screamed as I flew a few inches up, hovering above the platform as we dropped. I watched as the tunnel flew above us and then nothing was around me as I fell into deep space. Nothing to protect me from the danger of it.

  But nothing happened.

  I didn’t freeze. The air wasn’t sucked from my body.

  I was floating free in space and nothing happened.

  I couldn’t help but gape, my mind splintering apart to try and wrap around the magic of it.

  Then we slammed to a stop and my body hit the platform with a harsh thump.

  “How? What?”

  The alien looked back at me with a cold grin. “So small minded your kind are.”

  He stomped toward me, wrenching me from where I lay and tossed me over his massive shoulder. I lay there limp, gawking at the stars all around me.

  And the silence.

  The silence was deafening.

  I shouldn’t be able to see this. I should be dead.

  It wasn’t possible to walk in space with no protection. No air. It just wasn’t possible.

  But I was.

  There was absolutely nothing around me.

  He walked to the edge of the platform. Waiting.

  The ship sat at our side. Silent and hovering in space. It was smaller than Killian’s. By a lot. Maybe the size of a large house back home.
>
  A door hissed open but I couldn’t look away from the complex above us. We were at least a mile from it, that tunnel we were in slowly contracting in on itself.

  That worm had dug a tunnel right up from the bottom of the complex. How was the complex not imploding on itself? How had I not died just from being inside that hole?

  I was so confused.

  That worm had dragged me right down the complex and fell out into space and I was still breathing.

  I blinked away tears of relief and panic. I was so over my head with this. An alien had me. I had no idea what he was or what he wanted with me. I was breathing when I shouldn’t be able to. Living when I should be dead.

  My mind just could not fathom my current situation. Nothing made sense.

  And Killian wasn’t here.

  I didn’t know where he was.

  I didn’t know if he knew where I was.

  If he even knew I was still alive.

  But I was. Alive.

  The alien walked to the edge and I finally looked back. A glass box butted up against the platform from the entrance of the ship. This one short. It had a ceiling and three walls. And a floor. But it was just as open to the blackness of space by its entrance. It slowly encompassed us and the platform and then the alien was walking into it.

  He stomped through it and to a door that hissed open at the end.

  Three more grey aliens stood there as we walked inside. All of them wearing the same armor.

  I watched in awe as they pressed and pulled levers, the tunnel slowly disintegrating from my eyes.

  I could see it now. A blue-ish haze at the end of the tunnel.

  I hadn’t seen it before. I hadn’t felt it, but it glistened against the lights of the complex behind it. Some kind of forcefield that had protected me from the lifelessness of space. The tunnel wasn’t physically real. The worm had fell straight through it. It protected me from lack of air, but had I fallen too, I suspected the moment I passed it I would have died.

  The aliens didn’t look at me. They didn’t speak to me—except when the bigger one called me beast again.

  Their lack of interest in me was both frustrating and a relief. It allowed me to study them and my surroundings.