Won by an Alien (Stolen by an Alien Book 3)

by Amanda Milo

  Gracie nods. “Good deal. It’ll work.” When I look skeptical, she motions back and forth between us. “Remember when we first saw the aliens?”

  I nod. Even seeing them, seeing aliens… I’d had the ‘benefit’ of an alien landscape and still struggled to believe what I was seeing. I kept waiting to wake up or for a hidden camera to emerge. Now, the setting being Earth, that’s exactly what everyone will (hopefully) be expecting too.

  The hobs get capes that, as long as they keep their wings tucked down, makes them look pretty human. They just can’t flash those vampirey looking eyeteeth.

  “Take these,” Beth says to us. Highlighter pink armbands, the paper kind like you’d get wrapped around your wrist at a fair so you can ride all the rides. “Hopefully people will think you’re going to a Cosplay convention.”

  Beth tried to find a shirt that had a movie logo or auspicious company name on it for Brax to wear, but tshirts don’t come in Size: ALIEN and all of Brax’s shirts have to snap, zip, or velcro on because his spines make it hard to get anything on or off. All of his clothing has slots and holes for his extras to go—even if he could fit into a t-shirt, get him freaked out once and his spines would flay it into tatters.

  So Brax is going as Brax.

  Dohrein, Gracie, and the hobs that came with them set off for their mission with a giant movie camera that Beth’s pirates procured.

  Where and how they got ahold of it at this hour of the morning, I’m not sure, and I don’t care.

  I’M HERE.

  It’s that pitch black time between night, and the wee hours of the morning. Somehow, the few lights that shine down on the apartment complex only manage to make it look ten times as grungy and run down.

  When the aliens see it, they’re horrified. The other humans are horrified. Heck, I’m horrified.

  As I stand in the doorway of the place I called home, I’m struck with a mix of hope and fear. I don’t want the door to open to a confused family, who has no idea who I am or why I’ve shown up, who won’t have any better idea of where my children are, where my sister moved to, or whatever happened to my purse, wallet and keys.

  The thing that gave me hope was seeing my car in the parking lot.

  Until I noticed that all four tires had been stripped from it.

  Please be here. Please be okay. Please remember me.

  I knock.

  CHAPTER 77

  TARA

  “Tara!” Amy squeaks, her voice high and unnatural as she weakly holds a broom handle like a saber. I’d be concerned why she answers the door at three o-clock-ish in the morning with a broom handle, but I’ve lived in this apartment complex for two years, I know whenever you answer the door at this hour it isn’t good. “What… is… going… on?” Her eyes are darting from one alien to the other.

  I hold up my hands. “I know this looks scary.”

  Her gaze locks on me, and her eyes are wild, and bloodshot, and I feel really bad that it’s so early in the morning but very few people are up and around yet so if we get a move on it, this is technically a perfect time for this to happen. “Tara! I thought you were dead! Everyone thinks you’re dead! Where have you been? Why did you just…”

  I know my sister well enough to know that the way she’s scrutinizing me means she’s looking for evidence that I was either dragged off to an illegal sex ring in a place that has to use the special letters with the accent marks in order to spell it, or kept in an unplugged, hole-drilled freezer by a sadistic pervert. Because she knows I’d never have left on my own. Not for any reason. But I don’t look like I just crawled out of someone’s basement well. I look well fed (on bugs), well groomed (she’ll never guess I get my hair brushed by the seven foot tall alien behind me), and probably scared, and hopeful, and determined.

  “I was taken.” Liam Neeson’s voiceover starts in my head, and I shake myself to clear it. “But I’m fine now, and I’m here for Meg and Mona. And you, if you want to come with us.”

  The broom clatters to the floor. “You’re… you’re—did you go to the cops? Who were you taken by? Are they still after you? Where are you taking Mona and Meg? Do you think that’s safe?” Her eyes stab behind me, just in case I wasn’t aware there are two hulking aliens standing at my back.

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you, and to be honest, I’m afraid you’ll think I’m crazy and you’ll try to stop me from taking Meg and Mona. But I’m not crazy. I promise, we’ll be safe, but we have to hurry. Let us in.”

  “Hurry?” She darts a look up behind me, and I know from the heat at my back that Brax doesn’t approve of the way Amy’s just latched onto my shirt.

  Dimly, I register that Grake’s hand lands on my arm.

  Brax’s tail swipes it off.

  Annnnd my sister’s eyes follow that, her face going slack in horror as she stares at Brax’s incredibly, unnaturally ‘realistic’ tail.

  She’s so stunned that we’re able to gently shoulder past her.

  Door shut, standing just feet away from my goal, I’m almost vibrating. But I’ve got to try to calm her down. As I try to quickly think of the best way to do this, Grake rips his gaze away from my sister to give me a meaningful look. “Remember when I told you there was nothing I wanted of yours in repayment, and you told me that in that case, you’d owe me a big favor?”

  He slides a pointed glance at Amy once more, then fixes his pleading gaze on me.

  A big favor. I did tell him that—we did have a little conversation after I found out he paid to gift me the ability to understand and speak alien language. Thanks to him, I was able to tell people I needed my kids. But… “Are you asking for my sister?”

  “Say what now?” Amy’s voice is pitched too high.

  Grake smiles appreciatively. “I would like to redeem that very big favor right now. If you please.”

  “When you cash in, you cash in,” I mutter, and Amy looks like she thinks we’re about to bind her and offer her up as a human sacrifice in a temple that uses those special accent letters to spell it too. “Relax,” I say to her. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. I really don’t know how much time we have here, so I’m going to ask you something crazy, and it’s your call if you choose to do it.” I move in to hug her. Even though she is clearly confused, bewildered, and scared, she still hugs me back. “I’m taking the girls. What you are looking at is exactly what it looks like, though I can see you’re struggling to believe this.”

  “Believe it,” Grake says. “Please.”

  I continue over him. “Anyway, you’re welcome to join us.”

  “You just disappeared, and now you show up and… you’re taking the girls and leaving like, just like that—where? And where did you go? WHAT is going on?”

  I can’t tell if shock is making it hard for her to keep up or… , that’s probably exactly what’s causing her to repeat herself. I try to reassure her in a way that will reach her. “I love you. I’ll miss you. But besides you, now that I’ve got Megan and Simone back… there’s nothing here on Earth for me anymore.”

  “On Earth?” she enunciates, bringing her fingers and thumbs together like she’s trying to grasp what I’m saying—and wants me to hear what I’m saying too.

  I take a deep breath, and go for it. “Amy, I was abducted by aliens.”

  Dammit, that sounds just as insane as I was afraid it would.

  Amy thinks so too. Her eyes fill with tears and she bites her lips and I can tell she’s scared of me right now. But then she looks between the guys and she starts to look overwhelmed too. Like her brain is attempting to use fact (i.e. Aliens do not exist) to fight the visuals her eyes are reporting (i.e. That’s a damn big pair of not-aliens standing in the kitchen, huh).

  I remember feeling overwhelmed like that. Boy, do I.

  “Do you need anything else?” Brax asks, his tail twitching in agitation as he holds two long claws out to spread the window blinds. The beat up, half-broken window blinds. Goodness’ sakes, this place
is a dump.

  I turn to her one last time. “I saw the car on the way in.”

  Woodenly, she replies, “It stopped running last week. They’re going to tow it unless I can come up with the cash to get it fixed. Mechanic said new engine block.”

  We both wince.

  “Yeah, well, I don’t know if you noticed, but even a new engine block can’t help you get around if you don’t have any tires.”

  “Fuck. Me,” she breathes, her head falling back on her shoulders. “Those little assholes. I saw them hanging around the car yesterday, and I just knew…”

  I bring my hands together in a soft, single-clap. “Okay then. You need time to process, and I don’t have time to let you do that. So this is going to sound nuts but I’m taking my girls, I’m leaving Earth, and if you want an opportunity to start your life over: no creepy landlord, no crappy boss, no hearing the cops bust up the weekly domestic disturbance through paper thin walls? Come with us.”

  She just widens her eyes at me.

  I wave to Grake. “This guy wants to take you. He’s nice, I promise. But you don’t have to go with him. You can come along for just the kids and me, whatever you want. I know this sounds crazy—”

  She tilts her head, eyes going even wider. “It sounds like a cult.”

  To my shock, I laugh. “It’s not. I swear, it’s not.”

  Her eyes dart from Grake to Brax then back to me, and to be fair, this does sound… pretty darn crazy.

  Someone, probably drunk, starts banging on the window, laughing hysterically.

  “Meet Nick,” she says tiredly. “He’s our new neighbor, and he doesn’t know what ‘Not interested, go away’ really means.”

  Brax doesn’t know that the twisty stick is supposed to open and close window blinds. Even if he did know this, this one’s been broken since we moved in.

  Instead, he grasps the top track, rips it down, and lets out a growl that shakes the window pane. Backlit by the soft glow of the kitchen stove light, he must look just as scary as he actually is.

  New neighbor Nick lets out a squeal somewhere between a javelina pig and a vampire bat and lands on his ass. This makes Amy smile for the first time since we got here, and the look she turns on Brax is appraising.

  “That was so satisfying. Thanks.”

  Brax tilts his horns in acknowledgment. Then his eyes catch on something behind us, and his ears go from being pinned back in irritation, to swiveled out and perked up.

  I turn to see two little bodies peeking around the corner. A little taller, features a little more refined, everything about them grown, from their size to the way their faces show even more awareness and comprehension.

  Meg comes to me first, one sock on, one sock gone, her sleep shirt falling off her shoulder, and when she hesitantly asks, “Momma?” I don’t mean to start bawling. But that’s exactly what I do at the sound of her little voice. As she lets me reach for her, I see she still recognizes me. I’ve missed so much, and my heart is breaking over lost moments, lost time.

  But me crying like this isn’t conducive to a stress free, organized reunion and pick-up. Me crying like this is, understandably, scaring the girls, which upsets me, which agitates Brax, which concerns Grake, who is massively crushing on my oblivious sister.

  For now, I ignore everyone behind me though.

  I’m on my knees, trying to coax Simone, my shy baby, to come out, when Meg points and says, “Eww, a roach, kill it!”

  Not missing a beat, Brax takes it out by spitting a fireball. *Pthhew.* WHOOOSH.

  Amy screams and now I think she’s starting to believe me.

  Unexpectedly, Simone is fascinated enough by the fire breather behind me that she makes her way to me. She lets me hug her, and I think she knows it's me, but it’s like she’s timid with me.

  I suddenly have an even greater appreciation for the military men and women who deploy and come home to this bittersweet sort of reunion, where their babies don’t know them by the time they get back.

  I turn her loose when she wants to go, but she shocks us all by walking right up to Brax and shyly saying, “Hi.”

  CHAPTER 78

  BRAX

  I’ve seen fledgling princesses before. They are often delicate in appearance and even as youths, they are elegant.

  This tiny female, with her mane stuck up in different directions like quills, looks more like a Rakhii pup. At her approach, I sink to my hocks, and when she puts her hand on my knee, I slowly reach for her face. Keeping my claw aimed back, I wipe the crusts of sleep and the tracks of the anxious tears she shed a moment ago from her eyes. She mirrors me, putting both of her tiny hands on my face, testing the feel of my scales against her palms a moment before jerking her limbs back, and giggling.

  My hearts dance with the sound.

  She splutters something at me, more wet than word, and my ears extend so far forward that she reaches out and taps one. At her next spray of speech, I ask, “What?”

  The colorless sibling—who, without the benefit of attractive patches of skin pigmentation really does appear washed out—explains, “She said ‘puppy’. She thinks you’re a… puppy.”

  I raise my brow ridges at the tiny female before me. “That’s ironic.”

  I remain still when she circles around me, her warm eyes, little copies of Tara’s, so full of curiosity as she examines my features. She grasps one of my lower dorsal spines and proceeds to climb up my back as if they are ladder rungs. I can feel they won’t release toxin now, not with her near. But then I feel her tap the end of one of my quills. No toxin, but they are sharp.

  I hear a little hiss.

  I reach over my shoulder and attempt to grab her by the scruff. Lacking one of these, I settle for bunching the back of her small shirt in my fist and she gaily laughs as I drag her down. I curl my tongue around her finger and she devolves into sounds at such a painful pitch that I pin my ears, hoping to muffle against the shrillness.

  I keep an eye on Tara as she goes into the younglings’ room and begins collecting belongings. The match for this female is clinging to Tara’s leg.

  Humans are quite a lot like Rakhii as offspring. Fascinating.

  I keep this pup occupied, patiently pulling my face up and away from her poking fingers and over-petting, exuberantly affectionate hands. My translator is useless in deciphering her words, which leads me to believe she is exhibiting a middle-language, of some sort. It seems to be eloquent and make perfect sense to her.

  “I don’t know what you’re commanding,” I finally tell her when she repeats a phrase for the third time.

  Voice strained, the colorless sibling supplies, “P-puppy, down.”

  I look over at her incredulously. Beside her, bags stuffed full at her feet, stands Tara, who covers her face with her hands, her shoulders shaking. I slowly turn narrowed eyes on the pup, and not feeling cowed at all, she giggles. “Guppie dahn!”

  She snaps her fingers. And I give a loud bark of laughter.

  Behind me, Tara whoops with great peals of it also. Simone is both pleased with herself for bringing about this mirthful reaction, while simultaneously being startled at the outbursts. She dances backward and ducks a little then turns into a timorously bashful little being.

  Her increase in color saturation shows off her facial spots in high definition, and when she ducks her head, I am reminded of a young Tac’Mot—my hearts warm and experience a sensation akin to a candle that collapses from the wax having a soft spot. I rub at my chest, but I’m growing used to this sensation, thanks to this one’s dam.

  When Tara described the first time she looked upon her matching set of pups, she used the words ‘I was a goner’. Goner: is the etymology of this word ‘gone for her’? I will have to ask. If so, I find I can relate. “Come here, tiny princess,” I croon affectionately.

  Ah, she likes this. Slowly, she creeps towards me, and, face averted, hugs my hand to her own chest. I tug her nearer and give in to my curiosity and lick the purple patch in her
mane. She tastes like pup: dirt, sticky sweetness and… “This is not a natural spot,” I remark.

  The colorless sibling gasps “It’s GUM! Mona! Shame on y—”

  “You will not scold the princess,” I explain firmly, but politely, in deference to her relation.

  The sibling’s brow fur cocks, and she makes a sound of disbelief. “Oh, I can see we’re going to butt heads.”

  I examine her forehead. “I imagine you’re employing a local idiom, but if not, I’ll save you the lesson and just tell you: you’ll lose.”

  “So you think. This is my niece,” she enunciates, eyes, tone, and expression challenging.

  “This may be your niece, but you are not my princess.”

  Her face contorts. “Heck no, I’m not your damn—er, darn princess!” She starts to throw a look of confusion to Tara, but Grake grasps her arm, making her choke on her tirade.

  The smile he gives her is pained. “He’s a work in progress.”

  “Does this mean you’re coming?” Tara asks hopefully.

  The colorless sibling looks around, waving her hand at the unaesthetically pockmarked walls with tiny insects skittering behind them. My ears have been flicking like mad listening to the number of feet scurrying just out of view. “And stay here, just me and the roaches?” She laughs without humor. “When you disappeared, if I hadn’t had Simone and Megan…” Her eyes start to shine and my spines clack, not wanting to see this one’s tears. Neither does Grake, apparently, though his approach to handling this is affectionate. He tugs her to his chest, making her eyes go wide—her inner pain diverting to alarm at an unfamiliar male taking a liberty.

  I snort at him then turn back to Simone. I find her looking up at me, smiling slightly. I smile back.

  She beckons me closer with a tiny hand motion. I lower my head, and she throws her arms as far around my neck as she can reach.