Trapped by the Alien: A Scifi Alien Romance (Fated Mates of the Titan Empire Book 5)

by Tammy Walsh

  “Sir, I believe that is a Changeling ship,” Zes said.

  “It appears so,” I said, not stopping.

  “Shouldn’t we prepare for their arrival? They’re not known to be the most… patient of species.”

  “They didn’t announce their approach,” I said. “So, if they have to wait a while because we need to prepare for their unexpected arrival, that is no fault of ours.”

  Zes screwed his lips up but said nothing.

  I knew why they were coming. They wanted to stop me from lighting the beacon. Could they destroy the beacon and stop me that way?

  No. There was no way to destroy it. The top section of piled wood was merely decoration. The beacon itself connected across the entire moon like a celestial nervous system. Titans had a special connection to nature because it really was like the connections in a brain. The beacon was an ancient and powerful relic from the ancient world, harkening back longer than our culture had a memory.

  With our electronic systems of communication blocked, there was no way for us to communicate other than with our ancient and mystical methods.

  I approached the wall of curled engravings and ran my hands over it. It’d been a long time since I came this way. I needed to remember exactly how to open it…

  That’s right.

  I felt for the curved leaf and pressed it. It popped out and I turned it clockwise. For a moment, nothing happened. I wondered if it’d broken during the years it hadn’t been used.

  The wall parted via a barely perceptible crack and it shunted open. I grabbed a torch on the wall and lit it. Then I led the way, descending into the darkness and the steps below.

  The guards followed behind just in time as the wall grumbled and slid into place.

  When you weren’t able to move freely on the surface, you needed to make do with another method. These tunnels were built for such a secret purpose.

  The steps moved down until we were below the castle’s foundations. There was no safer place to be.

  “Are we expecting trouble with the Changelings, sir?” Zes said.

  “I hope not,” I said. “But we have to prepare ourselves.”

  “Prepare ourselves for what?”

  “To strike back.”

  “Strike back, sir?” Zes said. “I thought you wished to be more… diplomatic with your leadership?”

  “I did. Too many Titans would have been slaughtered at the battle. I wouldn’t needlessly sacrifice their lives. But now the Changelings are here. They’re on our homeworld and spread across our empire. We outnumber them a thousand to one. All we need is to light the match and the final battle will begin—this time in our favor. The beacon is that match.”

  Zes smiled but it didn’t touch his eyes.

  “Then your allegiance is with the Titans?” he said.

  I came to a stop. I turned to face the most loyal Titan I’d ever known.

  “Of course it is,” I said. “It always has been. I will always do what is best for our people, even if it means accepting dishonor along the way. That’s the problem with an honor system, I’ve learned. You’re judged by each act you make and not the overall outcome.”

  Zes nodded.

  “I see,” he said. “And there’s no way to change your mind about this?”

  “None whatsoever,” I said. “What’s the matter? Don’t you want to fight your enemies?”

  “Oh, I want to fight all right,” Zes said. “But the enemy isn’t who we think it is.”

  His eyes caught the light and glinted. I didn’t recognize the hint of menace in them until it was too late.

  He moved so fast I caught only a flash of his arm as he swung it up and across—knocking the torch from my hands. It clattered to the ground ten feet away.

  Zes spun around and drew his blaster. He opened fire and struck the first guard who hadn’t even seen the attack coming.

  The second guard reached for his blaster but he fumbled it in the semi-darkness.

  Another pull of the trigger and the guard was no more.

  Instead of reaching for the torch, I ran at Zes.

  I swung my arm at his pistol and knocked it from his hand.

  Zes slammed his fist in my gut. It hit me with such force I curled around it.

  I kicked at his chest to wind him and buy me a little time but my foot only struck his armor.

  His armor.

  And I wore none.

  Another fist struck my chin and knocked me off my feet.

  I swung at him with a strong throw but he ducked it easily and punched me on the arm.

  My rhythm was off and he’d taken me by surprise.

  But I still had an ace up my sleeve.

  He thrust with his fist but I caught it and twisted, throwing him against the wall. He moved to pull his arm free but I held on and moved back with him, shoving him against the wall.

  He ducked, expecting another blow. Instead, I threw my knee up, striking him in the face. I moved down with him and wrapped my arms around his shoulder.

  I wasn’t the best puncher but I was skilled at grappling. I tightened my grip.

  Zes had trained both me, Qale, and Emana to fight when we were young. He knew all our strengths and weaknesses and we never learned his.

  That seemed like a stupid mistake now.

  He kicked off the wall and used my strength against me, trapping my leg.

  That was it. I was done.

  I struggled against him but it was only a matter of time.

  “You’re a traitor?” I said, groaning as I fought to keep his hands from my throat.

  “I am more loyal to the people than you will ever be, my lord,” he said.

  He wrenched his hands free and, in the dark, he swung his elbow across my jaw.

  I hit the hard floor with a meaty thud. I moved to push myself up but he pressed his knee to my neck. He picked up the blaster pistol and aimed it at me.

  “Now,” he said, “how about we try that again?”

  The wall shifted aside and thudded into place. Zes went first and ordered me to follow him out. I did as he said. I didn’t think he wanted to kill me—if he did, he would have done it already. But I didn’t want a hole in an arm or leg. That would hardly improve my situation.

  I walked ahead of Zes with my hands clasped on top of my head. He trained his blaster on me.

  It was smart of him to bring me in through another secret passageway. The guards would be focusing their attention on attacks on the outside. If they saw their chief with a blaster aimed at me… Well, they would hesitate but ultimately come down on my side.

  “When did you sell your soul to the Changelings?” I said.

  “I never sold out,” Zes spat. “You did. When you refused to light the beacon.”

  “You’d prefer for millions of Titans to die?” I said.

  “I’d prefer for our honor to remain intact.”

  “I wanted to light the beacon today!” I said. “Come with me now and we can light it together!”

  “Things have changed,” Zes said. “Sometimes, to do the right thing, you have to think long term. That’s something I learned from you.”

  We were drawing closer to the main hall. We only had minutes before this situation couldn’t be reversed.

  “The emperor,” I said, “when he returns, he’ll make you a lord. That’s what this is all about, isn’t it?”

  “I’m going to be made a lord anyway,” Zes said. “The most powerful lord in the land. And with the most beautiful bride too. That’s not something you or even the emperor—if he’s still alive—could ever give me.”

  The most beautiful bride? My blood turned cold and I considered turning on him right then and there. To hell with dying. I refused to let a Titan like him have Sirena.

  “She’ll bury a blade in your ribs before you get near her!” I said.

  He chuckled.

  “Yes,” he said. “She probably will. She’s always been a firecracker. But she’ll learn.”

  Always? He
’d only known her a few days. Unless…

  The blood fell from my face.

  “You thought I meant your little human female?” Zes said, curling up his lip as if he’d eaten an out-of-season glaxonberry. “She’s too bony. I prefer a woman with some heft to her.”

  “Emana?” I said. “You can’t be serious.”

  “Why not?” Zes snapped. “I’ve loved her since she became a young woman. But she never gave me the time of day. Well, she will now. If she wants to live.”

  I wasn’t sure that was a strong enough threat. But there were ways to make her do as he asked… for a while at least.

  “Left,” Zes ordered.

  We drew closer to the main hall. I peered inside each room we passed and wished I could come across a gang of my guards. No such luck.

  Soon, we would be face to face with the Changelings. It must have been Zes who betrayed me to them. I wasn’t sure how he found out I decided to light the beacon.

  No, that didn’t sound right. When I told him about lighting the beacon in the passageway, he seemed genuinely surprised.

  He hadn’t known.

  Then how had they learned the truth?

  They must have another spy in the castle.

  Someone who could discover my secrets. The castle was easy to traverse at night. It could have been any of the guards when they weren’t on duty.

  S’lec-Quos and his helpers stood waiting at the opposite end of the ballroom when we arrived. It made me sick to my stomach to see Sirena standing beside them. Her eyes faced at the ground. Emana stood resolutely with her chin firmly raised. Good luck trying to break her spirit, I thought.

  One of the Changeling helpers ran his hands over me, checking for weapons. I had none.

  Zes took his position on the Changelings’ side, blaster pistol still drawn and aimed at me.

  “I must say, I am very… disappointed,” S’lec-Quos said. “We gave you the opportunity to prove yourself to your new overlords and instead you acted against us. Such betrayal cannot go unpunished.”

  “What I did, I did for the good of my people,” I said.

  “And what good would it have done them?” S’lec-Quos said. “You made a wise and prudent decision. And now you’re willing to throw it all away. If your people attacked, they would have all died. Good, honest, hardworking people. Their blood would have been on your hands. We did you a favor today.”

  “Don’t punish them,” I said. “Or my family. They knew nothing about this. It was all me.”

  “But it wasn’t all you,” S’lec-Quos said. “It was difficult for us to learn where your true allegiance lay but we finally discovered the truth.”

  I glared at Zes.

  “He deserves everything he has coming to him,” I said. “He has no honor.”

  Zes growled and his grip on his blaster tightened.

  “Alas, Zes was not our key to discovering the truth of your loyalty,” S’lec-Quos said.

  He motioned to one side.

  In Emana’s direction.

  Emana growled at the Changeling in disgust.

  “I would never betray my blood!” she screamed. “Never! Never! Never!”

  Once her screams died down, her fists forming tight white-knuckled balls at her sides, she followed my gaze to the only other person S’lec-Quos could have been referring to.

  No…

  Sirena managed to raise her eyes a little—just long enough for me to see the fear and, yes, guilt, that resided in them.

  My heart shriveled with grief.

  “Sirena…” I said. “It’s not true. Please tell me it’s not true.”

  For the longest time, she couldn’t even speak.

  “I… I wanted to go home,” she said in a barely audible voice. “I thought I had to…”

  It was enough.

  Sirena had surprised me many times over the past few days. And now she’d struck me with the most powerful blow yet.

  She had betrayed me.

  Sirena

  I clutched the overhead strap with both my hands as the shuttlecraft encountered turbulence on its way out of the moon’s atmosphere. We floated into space and the darkness enveloped us on every side.

  I had left.

  I was no longer on the moon I’d been imprisoned on this entire time. I had achieved my mission and I was leaving all the people I met behind.

  The two Changeling pilots sat in the front seats and flicked a bunch of switches and turned a host of dials. They conversed with Computer about a bunch of different tasks they needed it to carry out.

  The pilot leaned back and peered back at me.

  “Next stop, Earth,” he said with a grin.

  I smiled back but the expression didn’t have the impact on my emotions I hoped it would.

  I gazed out the porthole at the infinity of space. Strange, I thought, that I didn’t feel particularly airsick out here. It was a very smooth journey. I might have been on a slick train.

  The shuttlecraft arched around and moved past the moon at an angle. I peered down at that small marble. Was it as big as Earth? Maybe. It was hard to tell without something to compare it to. I cupped a C shape with my hand and placed the moon inside it.

  He was down there. Somewhere. Maybe he was even looking up at me. I wanted to wave but couldn’t bring myself to do it. It felt too much like I was saying goodbye.

  This whole time I’d been searching out Kal’s loyalties when maybe I should have spent a little more time thinking about where mine lay.

  With the cruel and twisted Changelings who wanted nothing more than to tighten their grip on a good and honorable people or with the honorable, righteous—and yes, devilishly handsome—Titans who worked so hard to protect his people from them?

  Just like that, I was back in his castle, to this morning right after Zes dragged the ragged man from the room.

  Kal saw something in those funny little frenetic pictures scribbled on scraps of paper. They meant nothing to me—nor to the translator strip attached to my neck. It scanned the illustrations and attempted to decode them but it was no use. They were random squiggles.

  For a moment, I thought it was a message the ragged man had given him before realizing they hadn’t come anywhere near each other.

  The images might have meant nothing to me but they did to Kal.

  That’s when he turned to me and baldly revealed his true allegiance. He told me what he intended on doing next and the part he needed me to play in it.

  He trusted me.

  He told me where to go, how to find the secret entrance at the foot of the castle’s outer wall, how to shift the stones aside, and crawl in the narrow space, to keep heading along it until I reached the very end where the prison cells were kept.

  I never went anywhere near it.

  The moment he left his room and marched around the corner to go light the beacon, I turned in the opposite direction. I headed toward my room and slammed the door shut behind me. I dropped to my knees and reached for the communicator hidden under my mattress.

  I switched it on.

  I composed my message in three seconds flat:

  HE’S GOING TO LIGHT THE BEACON

  My thumb perched over the Send button.

  I stared dumbly at it.

  And then I stared at it some more.

  For the past few days, I’d been looking for proof of where Kal’s allegiance truly lied. I had my suspicions since the first moment I met him, but I never had any proof.

  I had the key to my—and my friends’—return trip home in my hands.

  And now I was hesitating.

  I sat on the edge of my bed and ran a hand through my hair. It was still frizzy from the long night of scintillating sex.

  Unforgettable.

  Dreamy.

  And I wanted more.

  But I would never get it if I hit that Send button.

  I wandered over to the window and looked out on the strange alien world I found myself on.

  Strange, I tho
ught, that I should feel more at home here than I ever had back on my home planet.

  From here, the local town could have been Kal’s perfectly scaled model. Except it had real living people inside it, innocent people living their lives one day at a time.

  What would happen if the Changelings came here? Would they destroy it? Would they wipe it from existence? How would I feel about seeing that? Knowing it was my fault?

  The harsh truth was, the Titans couldn’t defeat the Changelings. Not in any way that mattered. They were outgunned and outmatched. They might win after a long struggle but at what cost?

  Kal had been right to stand down. His initial impulse was the right one. Not this sudden blitz into honor and chaos.

  I’d seen what chaos looked like. I couldn’t remember my parents from my earliest years but I could remember the bombs and the explosions, the dust drizzling down, and the booms of tank fire.

  And the screams.

  They shook me most during the long nights and my foster parents had to run into my bedroom and hug me close. Nothing could distract me long from the nightmares. Alcohol was a welcome friend. So was partying. Numbing distractions from the horror.

  I couldn’t let that happen again due to selfish inaction.

  If I could go back and stop the conflict that claimed my parents’ lives, would I do it?

  The answer was a surprisingly simple one.

  I had no choice but to call the Changelings.

  I raised the communicator to my face and jammed my finger on that green button.

  And it was done.

  I sat back on the bed and hung my head, placing it in my hands and waited for the inevitable. Still, a lingering part of me hoped Kal would achieve his goal and light that beacon, for whatever good it would do.

  The shuttlecraft took a tight bend as we swung around the back of the huge host planet and used its gravity to slingshot us behind it on the far side.

  Home. I was heading home. I would soon be in the land of milk and honey, back to the regular problems of a backward species. It felt strange to think of my people that way but after what I’d seen, was there any other way to think of us?

  I was looking forward to heading back.

  At least, I had been.

  Right up until that moment last night when I tiptoed off to Kal’s room and forced myself inside. He’d been a willing victim, I told myself. We made love for hours, and it’d been the most magical experience of my life.