Alien's Captive: A Science Fiction Alien Warrior Romance Collection (TerraMates Book 15)

by Lisa Lace

  One of the Wescra glanced back but didn’t answer. Leanne knew he could speak English. Still, she didn’t want to get knocked out, so she remained quiet. There was only so long her body could maintain a constant state of fear and tension. Leanne leaned back against the wall, her mind spinning.

  When they fed her, Leanne ate and drank willingly. If this was real, she’d need to keep her strength up. The food tasted disgusting, but at least they were feeding her. They obviously needed her alive.

  “Where are we going?”

  They ignored her.

  “I need to use the bathroom.”

  That got a response, which surprised her. The same Wescra who fed her, who seemed to have been assigned to caring for her, did something to the wall, and her handcuffs detached from it, though her hands were still tightly bound together.

  “This way.”

  Leanne followed them through the ship. It looked exactly like it did in the Denoli TV series. At least she knew how the bathroom worked from watching the show. Doing what she needed to with her hands bound in front of her was decidedly more difficult than she’d hoped, but she managed without any serious mishaps.

  “You may as well talk to me, you know,” she said as the Wescra led her back. “You said the journey would take a week. No point in being bored, right? What’s your name?”

  He frowned at her. “You are not for me. You are not mine to speak to, or touch.”

  Leanne didn’t point out that there was an awful lot of not-so-gentle touching going on when they dragged her out of the convention. His words sent another shard of fear through her. She’d been so focused on hoping this wasn’t real, that she hadn’t really thought past that, to what she knew.

  Somehow, one lucky producer had gotten hold of real data and used it to create a sci-fi show. The Wescra looked exactly as they had been portrayed. Leanne stared hard at his arm, but she couldn’t make out any trace of body paint. That wasn’t the worst of it, though.

  Wescra fed on human women, sexually, to increase their powers in battle. It helped them conquer the peaceful Greli. Leanne didn’t know why they had her, specifically, but she could guess all too well what they might want with a woman.

  Wescra women could feed off the men in turn. It was a pleasurable and beneficial experience for both. Human women didn’t have that same advantage.

  Leanne feared her fate would be worse than death. If the show’s depictions of human slaves of the Wescra was accurate, she would rather be locked in an unknown pod with her friends than out here.

  She sat down meekly and let her captor lock her back to the wall. The ship seemed to be in steady flight now, though she had no way of knowing which part of the universe they were in. Deciding that the best thing she could do was observe, Leanne sat back quietly to watch.

  One of the Wescra was at the controls, presumably monitoring the ship’s flight. The one who had taken her to the bathroom was also there. The rest had disappeared somewhere. Probably their personal chambers within the ship. She hoped the others were safe in those pods. Surely, they must be. If all the Wescra wanted was to kill them, it would have been easy enough to shoot them right there at the convention.

  Leanne couldn’t help letting a few tears streaking down her cheeks. She’d never been religious, but right then, she prayed, to anyone who was listening. Please, let her wake up in a mental institution. A nice safe, padded room with doctors taking care of her.

  At this point, she’d even take the drug den filled with potential rapists. At least in that situation, all she needed to do was get a few streets away and find a phone to call the police. If this was real? Leanne couldn’t see how she was going to get out of it. She didn’t know how to fly the spaceship. Even if she could somehow overpower and disarm all seven Wescra, she’d be lost in space.

  Please, please let this not be real.

  Chapter Two

  In her dream, Leanne remembered. She remembered the events that had brought her here so clearly…

  “We have customers waiting for these books! If you can’t even do such a simple thing…”

  Leanne tuned out Dragon Boss’ voice. Harriet’s face was red, and Leanne half expected her to start shaking her fist. She sighed internally. Dragon Boss didn’t want to hear that she couldn’t fix a glitch in their internal system. She didn’t want to hear that they’d need to wait for the technician. She wanted those new books loaded, and she wanted them now.

  “Get it done!”

  Dragon stormed off in her usual fashion. Leanne didn’t bother to point out that she had no training in IT, or that she had no idea how to fix the problem. She just nodded and tried not to breathe offensively. Just one more year, she reminded herself. She’d been saving as much of her wages as she could for the past four years. Next year, she’d have enough to go to college.

  Olivia stomped over. Leanne couldn’t help it; she giggled. Olivia’s temper had already almost gotten her fired a number of times. Leanne thought she should have been a human rights lawyer; she was always so passionate about treating people right. Clearly, Harriet didn’t share the same morals.

  “That was so uncalled for,” Olivia said in a vehement hiss. “If it’s so simple to fix, why doesn’t she do it?”

  Leanne shrugged and started taking another look at the computer. What Dragon Boss wanted, Dragon Boss got. Leanne had seen people fired over less.

  “You’ve got to stand up for yourself!”

  Georgia rolled her eyes. Georgia was always the calm one, and she’d managed to keep Olivia from being fired a number of times.

  “That arts degree isn’t going to pay for itself,” Leanne murmured, still focused on the computer. “Besides, why lower myself to her level? Let her scream. She has no idea how stupid it makes her look.”

  All three of them instinctively looked around; Dragon Boss had a habit of appearing out of nowhere exactly when you didn’t want her to be there. For now, though, the office door was closed. She was probably sulking. Or shouting at the technician, demanding he drop everything else and appear at once.

  A customer walked in, and Olivia seemed to deflate. Olivia was a tiny pixy of a woman, with bright eyes and spiky blue hair, but in her rage, she seemed to expand to twice her size. Georgia shook her head ruefully. Between Dragon and Olivia, their days were interesting, to say the least. Leanne just hoped that Olivia didn’t try to involve the Worker’s Union again. She hadn’t suffered for four years to get fired when college was so nearly in her grasp.

  Giving up on the stupid, buggy system, Leanne opened a spreadsheet and started to enter all of the dates from the new stock they’d received there.

  “Georgia, do you think you could program something for me? I’m entering everything on a spreadsheet, which is pretty similar to our internal system. When the technician fixes it, I want to have a way to set it to upload automatically.”

  Georgia’s eyes lit up. “Certainly.” She suddenly had a devilish look in her eyes. “You keep watch.”

  It probably wasn’t necessary; Dragon would be sulking for a while yet. Leanne still kept an eye out, though, as Georgia swiftly hacked the system and added a mod that would do what Leanne wanted.

  “You’re a genius.” Leanne gave her a high-five.

  “Actually, I’m a lazy sloth with the brain the size of a slug’s.”

  Leanne snorted. “Too bad Dragon doesn’t know slugs have brains.”

  “Just don’t mention that in front of Olivia. She’d throw a complete fit.”

  “I know.” Leanne glanced over at Olivia, who was done with her customer and was now sorting through all their orders in the rare moment of peace and quiet.

  “If she’s happy enough that we’ve found a way around the broken system, I may ask her today.”

  Olivia and Georgia both stopped what they were doing, looking tense and excited.

  “You think she’ll say yes?”

  Leanne shrugged, her stomach a bundle of nerves. If Dragon said no… well, she’d just have to
be very persuasive.

  A few minutes later, Leanne hesitantly knocked on Dragon’s door.

  “Come,” said a terse voice.

  “Harriet, I just wanted to let you know, I’ve fixed the problem. We’ll still need the technician in, but the books are loaded onto the computer.”

  “Oh. Good.”

  Dragon flicked her hand dismissively, but Leanne held her ground. “I was wondering if I could talk to you about getting some time off for Olivia, Georgia and me. Just a few days next week. We’ve already talked to the other staff and arranged for people to cover our shifts if you say it’s ok.”

  Dragon frowned at her, but before she could say anything, the phone rang. “Fine, fine.” She waved her hand impatiently. “As long as you log it correctly…”

  “Thank you!” Leanne made a quick exit before Dragon could change her mind.

  Georgia and Olivia were both dealing with customers, but Leanne gave them a subtle thumbs up. Georgia dropped the card machine she was holding, and Olivia’s eyes widened in delight. Leanne resisted the urge to get out her phone and call Hannah and Wendy at once. It wasn’t wise to bait the dragon twice in one day.

  The day seemed to drag after that. Fortunately, the technician arrived on time, so they didn’t get shouted at for that. The second she got home, Leanne dialed Hannah’s number. Hannah answered on the first ring.

  “Did you ask her?”

  “I did!” Leanne squealed. “She said yes!”

  “Excellent! Oh, that’s great, Wendy and I were so worried, because we don’t want to go without you.”

  “It’s still ok if Georgia and Olivia come too?”

  “Yes, of course, we like them both. She gave you all time off? Dragon Boss must have been in a good mood.”

  “Thanks to Georgia’s hacking skills.”

  Hannah giggled. “Have you told Wendy yet?”

  “You know I always tell you first.”

  Leanne and Hannah had been best friends since high school. Wendy had joined them in their senior year, and the three of them had been inseparable ever since.

  “She’ll want to start planning at once!”

  “I know,” Leanne said wryly. Wendy was obsessive about planning. “I guess we should call her.”

  A week later, they were booked into the closest hotel they could get to the event.

  “Sit still.”

  Georgia made an effort, but she was practically vibrating with excitement as Hannah styled her hair.

  “If you keep moving, you’re going to end up with blue hair.”

  “Hey, there’s nothing wrong with blue hair!”

  Hannah raised her hands in mock-surrender. “Your hair is awesome, Olivia. Having the ends dangle in still-wet body paint isn’t the best method of dyeing it, though.”

  “Besides, Dragon would throw a fit if I came to work with blue hair,” Georgia said.

  “Oh just let her try,” Olivia hissed. “It’s clearly stated under the workers’ rights act that —”

  “Olivia, it’s ok, I don’t even want blue hair.”

  Olivia stuck her tongue out as Hannah kept working, pulling Georgia’s long, wavy brown hair into a tight bun on her head, with a few strands artfully sticking out. She’d been doing all of their hair ever since she realized her ambition of becoming a hairdresser last year.

  Leanne looked around at her four friends, all in different stages of getting ready. Hannah had always been round and soft, with a wave of pale blond hair surrounding her face. She had that tied back now, her purple body paint already dry. Leanne was busy painting herself in the same color; it was a lot messier than the picture on the bottle looked.

  The Greli, the defending heroes of the show, were purple with red eyes. The Wescra, the evil invaders, were blue with gold eyes. Apart from that, they looked pretty human, so most of their costuming was body paint and getting hold of the space uniforms the aliens always seemed to be wearing.

  She looked at herself in the mirror. Her red hair already had specks of purple in it; at least it was short. Georgia, with her long black hair, already had copious stripes of blue. Leanne pressed one of the special contact lenses into her eye. The resulting red color wasn’t exactly the same as the Greli, but it was close enough. She was just lucky she had blue eyes; the others were going to struggle a lot more.

  She frowned at her stomach. She had an ok build, she guessed. She could never quite get rid of that stomach bump, though, and worried the space uniform was going to be too tight over it.

  “You’ll be great,” Hannah said, reading her mind. “Just wait for that body paint to dry before trying it on.”

  Hannah finished with Georgia, and Georgia stretched her back gratefully. She was so tall that she had to slump down even when sitting for Hannah to be able to style her properly.

  Wendy sat down next, and Leanne saw Hannah suppress a sigh. Wendy’s crazy, curly hair that stuck out at all angles had been a thorn in Hannah’s side for years. She attacked it with a vengeance, smothering it with gel while Wendy leaned forward and started painting her feet with blue body paint.

  Wendy was almost as tall as Georgia and stick-thin, but the appearance that a small gust of wind could blow her away was deceiving. Leanne had been there for moral support the day Wendy did her final test to get her black belt in karate. Anyone who messed with Wendy would find that they’d made a painful mistake.

  Olivia added the last touches to her body paint, which matched perfectly with her hair. The air buzzed with anticipation.

  It was still two hours until the event started, but they’d need every minute of it to perfect their costumes. Leanne had been looking forward to this for two years, and she was going all-out.

  “Are you sure we don’t need to be standing in that queue?” Hannah asked anxiously. They could see the long line of people through their hotel window, which was already spilling out into the courtyard.

  “No, we’ve definitely got the premium tickets,” Wendy said calmly. “They’ll move us right to the front.”

  “How did you get those tickets, anyway? I thought they sold out within minutes of coming out or something?”

  If Georgia knew Wendy better, she wouldn’t have needed to ask.

  “Oh, they did. I got them weeks before, though.”

  “How on earth did you manage that?”

  Hannah and Leanne were trying to hide their smiles from the other two. They didn’t know yet that Wendy could do anything.

  Wendy shrugged. “I may have found out that the head organizer has a weakness for a certain coffee that can only be bought in Italy. Since my cousin was coming home from Italy anyway…” she trailed off.

  “You bribed them?”

  “It was for a good cause.”

  “No arguments there! Oh no, these contacts look awful on me.”

  “Come here, let me take a look.”

  Georgia ceded to Hannah’s color expertise, and soon she had golden brown eyes, which was the best they could do with the spare color contact lenses Wendy had.

  After that, it was just putting the few finishing touches on their costumes. Leanne clipped on the wooden broach her father had carved for her that looked almost exactly like the ones the Greli wore over their uniforms. Hannah decorated her boots with red ties that matched the red stripes on the Greli uniform.

  They did a quick check of their generic hotel room for any spilled paint, but it seemed to have survived unscathed.

  “Everyone ready?” Wendy’s eyes were bright and shining with excitement, even through the contact lenses. Leanne imagined she must look the same.

  “Ready!”

  The five of them filed out and hurried to the elevator. They got in with two Eripi, gentle beasts that inhabited the Greli home world. Their costumes were amazing. Leanne couldn’t see their faces behind all the fur, and they’d managed to bulk out their bodies so that they filled most of the elevator. They looked so real that Leanne almost felt like she was in the show itself.

  The
y skirted the line and went through a small office, flashing their premium tickets. The organizers showed them to a much shorter line, which unlike the longer one, was already moving.

  “I wish they’d released programs beforehand,” Wendy muttered.

  “And ruin the surprise? No thank you.”

  Leanne was in agreement with Olivia. Not knowing what was coming just added to the anticipation. She doubted she’d sleep. She wanted to experience it all and not waste a second of it. All around, other fans were chatting happily, topics ranging from their favorite episode of the last season to what they thought the organizers had planned for them.

  Someone said he’d heard that they were going to get to try some of the traditional Greli dishes. Another man insisted that they were going to get to fly in a real spaceship. Leanne somehow doubted that, but she grinned nonetheless. This was going to be epic.

  “Nearly there,” Georgia said, standing on her toes and easily seeing over the heads of the people in front of them. “I can see light. It’s all orange, like when they have a hazard alarm on the ship. Maybe we’ll get to roleplay.”

  It was so noisy that it was difficult to tell, but Leanne thought she could hear the show’s theme song playing from somewhere inside the event room.

  “Tickets, please.”

  Leanne absently held out her ticket, trying to see past the women taking them. Hannah nudged her, and she took her wristband, fastening it at once. They were ready.

  They stepped through the doors.

  Leanne woke with a start and looked around. Oh no. she remembered now. What she wouldn’t do to have Dragon Boss screaming at her again? That already seemed so far away.

  Chapter Three

  Days went by. Each time she woke up on the stupid spaceship, Leanne lost a little more hope that this was a hallucination caused by drugs or mental breakdown. Each day, it seemed a bit more real, and she didn’t know what to do about it. Earth got further and further away from her every second. Who knew how fast they were traveling?

  Finally, something changed. Leanne guessed it had been a week, but it was hard to tell considering she had no way of knowing night from day inside the perpetually lit ship. From the shuddering, she thought they were descending into another atmosphere.