Taken by the Alien Next Door
Aliens Among Us #1
Tiffany Roberts
Contents
Blurb
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Epilogue
Author’s Note
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Also By Tiffany Roberts
About the Author
Blurb
An undercover alien. A curvy human female he’s desperate to claim. One month to make her his.
Tabitha Mathews has never had much luck with men. Her past relationships only left her heart aching and her self-esteem beaten down. But who needs them? She’s doing just fine on her own. She has a booming home business, an adorable, mischievous dog, and she just became a first-time homeowner…right next door to the hottest man she’s ever seen.
Oh, did she mention that he happens to be an alien? An alien with dreamy, glowing eyes, wicked fangs and claws, and a tail.
But she’s not supposed to know that, and only finds out after her wonderfully considerate dog leaves a big, odorous gift in her neighbor’s back yard—which promptly results in her being kidnapped.
Now she’s tied to the alien’s bed, because of course he’s come to Earth in search of a mate—and he wants Tabitha to fill that role. More specifically, he wants her to carry his baby.
Saying he’s moving fast seems like a bit of an understatement. Is Tabitha willing to accept her alien abductor as a mate? Is she ready to be a mother?
And he’s generous enough to give her four whole weeks to decide.
It’s not like it’s the biggest decision of her life or anything…right?
Copyright © 2020 by Tiffany Freund and Robert Freund Jr.
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be used or reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form by any means, including scanning, photocopying, uploading, and distribution of this book via any other electronic means without the permission of the author and is illegal, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, contact the publishers at the address below.
Tiffany Roberts
[email protected]
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or people, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Cover © 2020 by Mayhem Cover Creations
Created with Vellum
To everyone who needs a hug right now.
And to you, my other half, through thick (literally—wait, did I just burn us both?) and thin, good and bad, I love you.
One
Zevris’s phone chimed from the passenger seat, indicating another received message.
He gritted his teeth and tightened his grip on the steering wheel, making the leather covering creak. The vehicle’s speed crept higher—sixty-one, sixty-two, sixty-three. Eight miles per hour over the speed limit, then ten. A small, tight, sinking feeling settled low in his gut as his body was pressed back against the pilot’s chair.
Driver’s seat, he corrected.
He’d never encountered a language with so many words that had similar but nuanced meanings, and that wasn’t even taking into account that there were differing dialects of English spoken in different parts of this world that complicated things even further.
His phone chimed again. He wound his tail, which was currently hidden in his pants, tight around his calf. For an instant, he had the impulse to snatch the phone off the seat, crush it in his fist, and throw the damned thing out the window. He’d been tempted to do so to Kindra’s phone more than once during dinner this evening.
With a growl, he eased off the accelerator. His frustrations were valid, but he could not—would not—allow them to cloud his judgment. Speeding in these rolling deathtraps humans called automobiles was a crime. His mission parameters specified that he was to avoid undue attention, and though the local human authorities were the least of his concerns on that front, he could not ignore their existence.
A faloran althicar was not meant to be on Earth.
Keeping his eyes forward, he reached aside, plucked up the phone, and fumbled with it for a moment before finally flicking the mute switch on the side. He’d had more than enough of such devices for one lifetime.
I need only complete this mission, and I am free. My service will be over, and I may find peace…
Zevris forced a heavy breath out through his nostrils and tossed the phone down. Somehow, he managed to still his mind and simply drive for a few minutes. The freeway was flanked on either side by lush trees and shrubs in brilliant greens that were contrasted by tufts of dry, pale brown grass beneath them. The dichotomy seemed a fitting one for humans; Earth’s dominant species was an indecipherable bundle of contradictions and conflicting natures.
Kindra had been one in a long line of failed connections for Zevris. He’d dated numerous human females since he’d arrived on Earth nearly a year before, and each of those would-be relationships had quickly crumbled for various reasons.
Some of the females, especially early on, had seemed attracted to him physically but were made uncertain by his mannerisms and speech patterns. It had taken time to understand a frustrating truth about the English language—using a word exactly according to its definition did not necessarily mean it was the right word. He still made those mistakes, despite his self-awareness.
He’d also learned another early lesson—females were not keen on discussing the matter of procreation on first dates. His attempts to be honest and up front, at least as much as he was able, had not produced the intended results.
The phrase I want you to carry my offspring was not one that human females found endearing.
A few relationships had fizzled because of what the humans called chemistry. He was fairly certain by now that those females had not been referring to the scientific discipline concerning the composition of matter. As time had gone by, more and more relationships had ended because he’d learned to recognize that they simply would not work. There’d been some deep disconnect between himself and those females that made the forging of a mating bond impossible.
Despite the urgency, despite their race’s desperation, a faloran could not entirely force the mating bond. There needed to be some sort of connection there, some sort of spark.
Zevris had yet to find such a connection.
His freeway exit loomed ahead, and he guided his pickup truck into the appropriate lane to take the offramp. He knew the area well enough that the route to his dwelling was second nature. As he guided his vehicle along the roads and through the turns with practiced ease, his mind took to wandering—something it had rarely done before he’d been sent to Earth.
He’d not performed any exerting physical activity today,
but found himself drained regardless, as though a little of his life force had been stolen away.
The first minutes of his initial face-to-face meeting with Kindra had consisted of her pressing her body against his, as though they were already a mated couple, while she held her phone high to capture a maddening number of still images of the two of them, repeatedly checking the results and trying new angles until she’d found one she was apparently satisfied with.
There’d been no formal introduction, no discussion, no request for his permission. The only thing she’d said to him by the time they’d been seated at their table was, “You’re even hotter than in your pictures.”
Immediately after they’d sat down, she’d posted her chosen image to some social media outlet, and had spent the next fifteen minutes—to the annoyance of both Zevris and the food server—replying to comments on the image.
He’d kept count during their meal; she had looked at him directly a total of five times over the hour and twenty minutes they were at the table, and had not once set her phone down, even when she’d begun eating her food. In fact, she’d taken a picture of said food right after it had been placed down before her. Zevris had deliberately spoken to her in a manner that local humans seemed to find strange just to see her reaction.
If Kindra had noticed, she’d made no indication. She’d chatted incessantly throughout the meal, rarely leaving him any room for input. She talked about her ex-boyfriend, about drama within her friend group, about how much she hated her boss, and mentioned many, many times that she was on her way to becoming an influencer. Even after nearly a year on Earth, attempting to absorb the culture and the way these people used their language, Zevris had understood little of what Kindra had spoken about.
Zevris turned his vehicle onto his street, and he was stricken by an unexpected wave of familiarity and comfort.
This place is not my home, he reminded himself. This is just another theater of operation during another mission. My final mission. Soon enough, I will return to my true home…
His lips fell in a deep frown as he turned into his driveway and shifted the truck into park. A press of a button powered off the growling combustion engine. Normally, this routine activity spawned a very specific thought in his mind—why did the humans call the place they parked their automobiles driveways?
That thought did not come now; another dilemma was consuming his thoughts.
Was the world of his birth, Strion, truly his home anymore? He’d spent his entire adult life away from it, jumping from world to world as the assignments from Exthurizen Command were passed down, his neural transceiver constantly loaded with new languages, new cultures, new maps and documents and information. His homeworld was little more than a distant memory.
He spat a curse, grabbed his phone, and dropped his hand to the door handle.
The phone vibrated, and Zevris paused.
He knew without looking that every one of those chiming alerts had signaled a message from Kindra. He could almost hear her voice, as though the echoes of her relentless prattling were still resonating in his ear canals, and barely suppressed the shudder threatening to course along his spine.
His fingers flexed and his tail twitched as the urge to destroy his phone intensified. Zevris understood that the impulse was in some way born from repression; he’d not had a decent fight since arriving on this planet. Violence, though glorified in human media, was frowned upon in reality. It was, in fact, illegal here.
At least it was illegal as far as Zevris could tell. Human laws, like humans themselves, were unnecessarily complicated.
With a huff, he removed his hand from the door handle, unlocked his phone, and selected the message application without allowing himself to register the number of alerts noted on the display. He tapped on the entry labeled Kindra. The cascade of messages on the screen nearly made his head ache.
Where r u
Did u leave?
Not 2 sound mean or anything but thats a dick move. U couldve said something
Its kinda bs that u didnt tell me you were going
Especially cuz I was going 2 ask u for a ride home
I mean we had like a good time right? And u r rlly rlly hot. So maybe…
U wanna swing by my place 2nite?
My roommate is home but she is down for w/e and she thinks ur hot 2
Dont play hard 2 get I no u want me
U better not b ghosting me. Do u even know who I am?
WTF
Like who do u even think u r?
U better get over urself b4 u lose out on ur chance at this
Kindra had included an image of herself taken from a high angle, her lips in an exaggerated pout, her chest thrust out to display her ample cleavage.
Zevris tilted the phone, narrowing his eyes. In the picture, Kindra had one arm tucked under her breasts, propping them up and making them look fuller. Was that normal behavior for females in general, or was it simply a mannerism of the females of Earth?
The phone vibrated again, and yet another message appeared.
I did u a favor goin out with u
U selfish prick
Hand trembling, Zevris tipped his head back, closed his eyes, and forced himself to breathe. Were these the sorts of struggles his forefathers had gone through in finding their mates generations ago, before the plague had decimated the population of faloran females? He couldn’t imagine any civilization, any species, that could survive long like this if his experiences were indicative of the wider human courtship experience.
He refused to give in to frustration. A broken phone was an unnecessary hassle—one that would have a direct effect on his mission. Humans relied upon their handheld devices for a startling amount of their everyday activities, including the courtship rituals they called dating. Without a working phone, Zevris would be effectively cut off from human society.
Not that it would actually hurt his chances. One could not do much worse than absolute failure.
He exhaled, opened his eyes, and looked down at his phone. Even this—one of the larger models available —was a bit small in his hands, and he had to move his thumbs with care to properly enter his response to Kindra.
I paid for your meal. Shouldn’t that be considered a favor to you?
Kindra’s reply came within a couple seconds.
I didnt ask u 2 do that so i dunno wtf ur point is?
Clenching his jaw and barely keeping himself from growling, Zevris typed, According to your FindMeAMatch profile, Kindra, you are 24 years old. Well into your adulthood. How have you failed to grasp the basics of the English language? It astonishes me that anyone as self-absorbed and
Zevris grunted, halting his thumbs. He shook his head as he deleted the message he’d just written. Better to finish this quickly. As unpleasant as the dinner had been, he would not take out all his anger on this human. Perhaps she deserved some small portion of it, but he knew it would be all his rage released or none at the moment.
I have no further interest in you, female. He pressed the send arrow.
There. It was done.
The phone buzzed.
FEMALE?????
The message was followed by a small bubble with three dots flashing one at a time.
Zevris sighed and ran a hand through his short hair before opening the truck door and climbing out. He drew in a deep breath, appreciating the fresh air, and eased the grip of his tail on his leg. A gentle breeze was flowing through the trees and bushes planted in the neighborhood’s neatly manicured front yards.
Flicking the lock button near the handle, he closed the door. He walked to the mailbox at the end of the driveway, opened it, and removed the envelopes from within, glancing through them. Bills and junk—the two forms of mail that seemed to bind all humans together in a common experience.
Zevris could not understand why humans so often insisted upon utilizing such outdated and wasteful means of communication. Given their current level of technology, they were more than capable of cond
ucting all such communications electronically.
Of course, he’d seen a great many other issues here on Earth that humans were more than capable of overcoming with their technology and ingenuity yet seemed unwilling to fix, so he wasn’t surprised.
He glanced down at the phone.
The dots continued blinking.
A chorus of laughter from children playing down the street drew his attention momentarily aside, but it was not the young ones that his eyes settled upon.
There’d been a FOR SALE sign posted at the neighboring property for the last couple months. Zevris had seen strangers come and go, often led by well-dressed humans with friendly, sometimes overeager smiles. Realtors. That was the word.
A smaller sign had been attached to the post above the original one.
SOLD.
That meant he would have a new neighbor. Perhaps he could befriend that neighbor, and through that friendship pick up the understanding he required to move his mission forward. He’d attempted to be friendly with several of the other neighbors, and many had reciprocated at first. Over time, it became clear that most of the people in the nearby dwellings simply preferred to keep to themselves. One man from across the street, however, had grown cold when he realized Zevris’s garage was being used as a woodworking shop.
Even though Zevris utilized his power tools only during normal daytime hours, in accordance with the town’s noise ordinances, he’d had a few complaints filed against him.
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