by Sonia Nova
Gift of the Beast
Starr Huntress
Sonia Nova
Contents
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
Epilogue
About the Author
Also by the Author
Are you a Starr Huntress?
More Sci-fi Holiday Romance
Holiday Starrs
Gift of the Beast
Copyright © 2020 by Sonia Nova
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations in book reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, places, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
www.starrhuntress.com
www.sonianova.com
Chapter 1
Shea
March
“Look, Mom! It’s a cruise ship!” Lila bounced up and down in excitement, pointing at a large spaceship docked at the station. It was heartwarming to see her five-year-old daughter so ecstatic over such an ordinary thing.
Shea smiled down at her. “Yes, sweetie, it’s a cruise ship. There aren’t many of them in New York, but Space City has lots of different types of ships.”
Lila turned to her, her dark eyes wide in amazement. Shea could already sense the question before it came.
“Why?”
Sometimes, it could get frustrating when Lila constantly demanded reasons for everything, but not today. Shea and Lila were on holiday. They had made the day’s drive from New York to Space City to visit Shea’s sister, Hazel, and her mate, Zeriq. Shea had to admit, it had been a good decision.
“New York is a predominantly human city,” Shea explained. “Space City is the main space port on Earth. The headquarters for the Intergalactic Alliance on Earth are here. A lot of ships go from here into orbit, or to other planets and space stations.”
“Why?”
“To carry products and to take people where they want to go.”
“Why?”
“Well, sometimes people want to go on holiday, or move for work, like Auntie Hazel last year. As for products, people need those. A lot of the food we get is imported from other planets, for example. You like the shiran snacks, right? Those are Ghelian. The ships bring them to Earth so we can all enjoy them.”
This answer seemed to satisfy Lila – or perhaps she simply got distracted by the large holographic board displaying the different types of engines.
“Mom, is that a Fold Drive? How does it work?”
Shea looked to Zeriq for help. Hazel and Zeriq had spent the entire day showing them around the city. Her sister’s mate worked in the Alliance military and regularly flew spaceships. He would know better than her how a Fold Drive ship worked.
A tour guide with a gaggle of children passed them by. Shea had chosen to come to visit now to coincide with the space exhibition aimed at children that would take place over most of Space City in the next few days.
Maybe they should join Lila up with one of the tour groups, but for now she looked perfectly happy turning to Zeriq about the different types of engines. And maybe he even knew better than a tour guide would.
With an exhibition brochure in his hand, Zeriq knelt down to Lila’s level.
“Do you see this brochure, Lila? See how far the two corners are from each other? Now, if I fold them, they are suddenly very close together. I can get from one corner to the other easily. The fold drive does the same thing but with space. No one really knows exactly how it’s done, since the technology is exclusive to the Va’ii, but that’s the main gist of it.”
“Why don’t people know?”
Zeriq looked at Shea, and then started explaining. “Well, the Va’ii are… They don’t think other races would use the Fold Drives for a good cause.”
“Why?”
Shea tuned out of the explanation with a chuckle. She could tell that Zeriq would do just fine by the time their child was this age.
Shea herself had never really held much interest in aliens or outer space. Hazel was the space nut in the family – and Lila seemed to be taking after her aunt. Shea would stick to writing articles for the newspaper. She’d dig up people’s secrets and leave the secrets of space to Hazel.
She hoped that she would find a good story here too to present to her boss when she got back to work. Space City was a hive of activity, a journalist’s dream. She was supposed to be on holiday, but Shea loved her work, and she could never resist a good story.
She walked up to her sister, who was staring at the ships docked at the station.
“Do you miss it?” Shea asked, watching her sister carefully.
Hazel turned toward her with a smile. “Not really. I may not have gotten my intergalactic career going, but once the baby is born and Zeriq has some time off work, we can still travel to other planets… When it’s safe, that is.”
Shea nodded. Her sister had always yearned for an Alliance career, but all that had changed months ago when the ship she had been on had been attacked by Krezlians. Hazel and Zeriq had been stranded together on an icy planet, fighting for their lives.
They’d made it out, but when Hazel had discovered that she was pregnant, she’d decided to stay on Earth instead of moving to Inea for her Alliance career. At the moment, she worked at the Alliance’s Earth branch in communications.
Shea was happy to have her sister back. It was a bonus that she hadn’t moved off-planet. Of course, she had been supportive of her sister’s dreams, but the two of them had always been close. Even now, with Hazel living a day’s drive away in Space City, Shea missed her terribly. There were no daily lunches with her sister anymore. No movie nights.
At the same time, Shea was happy for Hazel and the family she was building here. And yet, she knew she wasn’t the only one who missed her sister. Lila had been so excited to come for this visit. Ever since Hazel had left to space the last time, Lila had been watching documentaries about spaceships and the Intergalactic Alliance. Shea couldn’t help but think that a part of her interest had sparked because she’d missed Hazel.
“Why does it do that?” Lila’s voice drifted into Shea’s ears.
“Even though it’s slower, this type of engine is safer for larger cargo ships,” Zeriq explained.
“Why?”
“Large ships use more power, so they have a higher chance of breaking down delicate engines like that one.”
“Why?”
Shea rolled her eyes, but Zeriq remained patient with Lila.
“I hope this ‘why’ business isn’t genetic.” Hazel winked at Shea, rubbing her baby bump.
Shea chuckled. “You’re just out of practice. A couple of weeks with your little one, once they start talking, and you’ll be able to answer why questions in your sleep. When are you due?”
“We’re not exactly sure,” Hazel said, scrunching her brow. “There aren’t that many cases of Ezak-X mating with humans. We’re expecting a shorter pregnancy than usual, but it could be anything from three to seven months still. The doctor says we’ll just have to wait and see.”
“But you’re doing okay? You and the baby?”
“Oh, yes.” Hazel smiled. “It’s a healthy pregnancy. I haven’t even gotten morning sickness, though we’re not sure if that’s because my baby is half-Ezak-X, or if I’m just one of the women who doesn’t get it.”
Hazel stared at Zeriq as he started explaining different types of ships to Lila. Her expression was so soppy and lovesick that it took all of Shea’s willpower not to laugh. Hazel and Zeriq were clearly deliriously in love, and while it was often sweet to watch, Shea found that she was sometimes jealous of them.
Her relationship with Evan had been an unqualified disaster. The one good thing to come out of it was Lila. Shea never regretted her daughter for an instant, but she was still bitter about the way Evan had treated her.
At least he’d never been verbally abusive toward Lila, but that didn’t change the way he’d acted toward Shea. Of course, their relationship had been good at first, like all relationships. When things had started to fall apart, Shea had tried to fix them. Evan hadn’t been interested in fixing things.
Shea had only realized just how uninterested he was in salvaging their marriage when she’d caught him in bed with his secretary. Tiffany was vain, rude, and about ten years younger than Evan. Oh, and she was a D-cup, which Evan had listed as one of her most important features in comparison to Shea.
He was just as vain as she was, and honestly, the two of them deserved each other. To think that Shea had ever been in love with that idiot… Love truly was blind.
“Mom and Dad won’t be happy that you don’t have an exact due date,” Shea said, pushing the bitter memories from her mind. “They’ll complain about not knowing when to drive up for the birth.”
“Let them complain. I’ll set Zeriq on them if they get too annoying.”
Shea snorted. Zeriq, like all Ezak-X, looked rather intimidating, with his horns, scars, sharp teeth, completely black eyes, and gray skin. Not to mention that he towered above all humans by at least a foot. Despite his appearance though, Zeriq was a sweetheart. Maybe initially he seemed a bit edgy and difficult to understand, but he was wonderful to Hazel, and Shea was genuinely happy for them.
Shea couldn’t begin to imagine what Zeriq had gone through in his life. Shea didn’t think she would have made it through all that with even half of her mind intact, and definitely not as well as Zeriq had.
The Krezlians had genetically engineered the Ezak-X in labs for their own personal military. They had been caged and tortured into compliance for years.
When the Alliance had caught wind of it, they had shut the operation down and freed the Ezak-X, but the Krezlians were still a threat. Despite being kicked out of the Alliance, they had continued their plans for domination and war. Their latest target: humans.
The Ezak-X were sterile – or so everyone had thought – until they’d started having children with human women. Which now meant that the Krezlians were targeting human women for their sick experiments, wanting the children born out of those unions and making life on Earth – especially if you wanted to leave the planet – more than tense.
It was what had caused Shea to nearly lose her sister, and if it was up to her, the slimy, lizard-like Krezlians could all go to hell.
“They’ve met Zeriq and they like him,” Shea protested, laughing at the image of Hazel setting the man on their parents. “He doesn’t scare them.”
Hazel grinned, clearly just as amused by the image. “He hasn’t shown them his scary face yet. Trust me, he can be terrifying when he wants to be.”
Shea rolled her eyes. “It is a long drive, though. They may not make it up in time.”
“It is a pity,” Hazel mused. “I wish our kids could grow up together.”
Shea didn’t say anything. What could she say? Hazel’s life was here in Space City now, while theirs continued in New York. Still, she hated that there was such a distance between them. For Lila’s sake too.
“You know, you could move here,” Hazel said, almost startling Shea with the idea.
“What?”
“You and Lila. You could come and live here.”
Shea immediately shook her head. “Evan wouldn’t like that.”
“Who cares what Evan thinks?” Hazel said with more than a little anger in her voice. “After the way he treated you, he doesn’t get a say.”
“He still has visitation rights to Lila. While I do have sole custody, he could fight it in court if I tried to move without clearing it with him first.”
“Please.” Hazel rolled her eyes. “He’s barely seen Lila in months. I don’t see him protesting.”
Hazel was right about that much; Evan probably wouldn’t argue because he wanted to see his daughter more often. He would simply use it as another way to gain control over Shea’s life. She was so done with his bullshit, but she didn’t want Lila to lose her father, even if he was a crappy one.
“Zeriq loves children – look at him with Lila now. He’d be a better father figure for her than Evan ever would.”
Shea couldn’t disagree with that, but Lila still loved Evan. She didn’t understand how mean and controlling he could get. She just knew him as her daddy, and Shea didn’t want to take that away from Lila.
“I’ll think about it,” she said.
She certainly was tempted, but she wasn’t sure if she could take the inevitable conflict the move would cause. Besides, she needed to do what was best for Lila, not herself. Lila needed her dad. Even if it seemed like her dad didn’t care about her anymore.
Shea was just about to join Lila and Zeriq at the exhibit of the cross section of a military ship when her phone rang.
It was Evan’s number.
Shea sighed. He never called back even once on all those days Lila was waiting for him, but now, when Lila was happy and distracted, he decided to grace Shea with his presence.
She was sorely tempted to hang up on him, but she reminded herself that just because Evan hadn’t treated her well, didn’t mean that she had to turn the same behavior back on him. She could be the better person here.
Shea answered curtly. “Evan.”
“Hey, Shea!” Evan’s fake, cheerful voice echoed on the other end, just like always when he wanted something. As if none of the cheating and betrayal had happened. As if they were doing just fine and dandy. “Listen, I was wondering if you still have any of Lila’s old baby clothes? Tiffany’s pregnant, see, and I could really use them.”
Rage and hurt spun through her. It had been a year since their divorce, but the mention of Tiffany still managed to get to her. So, Evan’s side chick was pregnant, was she? Shea could only hope that he was a better father to that child than he was to Lila.
“We’re on vacation, Evan, in case you’ve forgotten. I sent you a text about it last week.”
“Oh, right.”
“Lila is having a really good time here – not that you even asked. She’s really interested in spaceships. And you know, Hazel brought up the idea of Lila and me moving here. I must say, I’m considering it.”
That certainly got his attention. “What the fuck, Shea?! You can’t take my child away from me! You fucking dare try and I’ll have your ass in court before you can pack your suitcases.”
It had been a low blow, and Shea knew it. It wasn’t something she should’ve said. It wasn’t something she should even be considering as an attempt to get back at Evan. But the hurt and pain had come raging back to the surface at Evan’s indifference. Not just hurt for herself, but for Lila.
“You wouldn’t have much of a case,” Shea said coldly. “You’ve missed your last three visits with Lila. I don’t see any judge taking your word for it that you’re really invested in having a relationship with her.”
“Don’t you dare try that shit with me, Shea! I won the visitation rights, fair and square, you whore.”
Whore? Whore? He was picking the wrong woman to call that. Tiffany was the one who had been screwing a married man, who was off making babies with him while
he neglected his first child.
Shea bit back the furious diatribe she was longing to throw at him. She couldn’t. She wasn’t that kind of person. She was better than him.
“If you can’t talk about this civilly, Evan, then I’m not going to talk to you at all.”
“FUCK YOU–”
Shea hung up on him with a feeling of immense satisfaction. She took several deep breaths, calming herself. Evan always managed to rattle her, but asking for Lila’s old clothes for his new baby? Shea was all about recycling, and most of the clothes had gone to friends as soon as Lila had outgrown them, but seriously? Evan must’ve lost his mind.
Did she really want Lila spending her time with someone like Evan, even if he was her father? He certainly wasn’t a good influence on her. It might be better for Lila to move and stop expecting to see her father. Then she wouldn’t have the constant disappointment of missed visits.
No. She couldn’t think like that. Evan was Lila’s father. And as much as it pained her, she would have to try to keep things civil with him. Bend to his will, just like she’d always done in their marriage.
The thought angered her once more, but she pushed it aside. She was not going to let Evan ruin this day. She was here for Lila. They were having a good time. Exploring spaceships. Enjoying the day with her sister and her sister’s mate.
Taking a deep breath, Shea tried to keep her calm. She strolled through the different displays, looking without really seeing, taking advantage of the time Zeriq was occupying Lila to think.
A new place and some distractions from her absent father might be just what they needed. What Lila needed. There was certainly plenty for her to see in Space City, with her interest in space and spaceships.
