The BloodDark Series
Book Two
Olivia's Return
By
Cindy A. Matthews and Adrian J. Matthews
Table of Contents
Title Page
The BloodDark Series
Dedication and Acknowledgment
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
About the Authors
The BloodDark Series
The BloodDark Series Book One: Olivia's Escape
The BloodDark Series Book Two: Olivia's Return
The BloodDark Series Book Three: Olivia's Decision
Desert Breeze Publishing, Inc.
27305 W. Live Oak Rd #424
Castaic, CA 91384
http://www.DesertBreezePublishing.com
Copyright © 2017 by Cindy A. Matthews and Adrian J. Matthews
ISBN 13: 978-1-68294-079-2
Published in the United States of America
Publication Date: February 2017
Editor-In-Chief: Gail R. Delaney
Editor: Shawna K. Williams
Marketing Director: Jenifer Ranieri
Cover Artist: Gwen Phifer
Cover Art Copyright by Desert Breeze Publishing, Inc © 2017
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information retrieval and storage system without permission of the publisher.
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Names, characters and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination, or are used in a fictitious situation. Any resemblances to actual events, locations, organizations, incidents or persons – living or dead – are coincidental and beyond the intent of the author.
Dedication and Acknowledgment
To my parents, Pauline and Peter. —AJM
To my parents-in-law, Pauline and Peter. Thank you for all you have done and continue to do for us. —CAM
Chapter One
They're at it again...
Olivia hated hearing her parents argue. Their raised voices penetrated the solid oak swinging door separating the kitchen from the dining room of their renovated Victorian house. Her mom and dad argued a lot more than she remembered.
If having your child abducted by aliens and consequently returned several months later doesn't bring you closer together as a married couple, what would? Her returning from a run-of-the-mill Earth kidnapping?
Bright autumn sunlight streaking from the bay windows drenched the room. Olivia rose from the antique dining table and headed toward the front door.
"Where do you think you're you going?" her mother asked, barreling in from the kitchen and catching her just as she crossed the archway into the living room. Olivia backed up to the table and began clearing away their empty Sunday dinner plates.
She sighed. "I was going out. I thought I'd drop by and say hello to Britt. She texted me. She's in town from college today, and we thought we'd catch up."
Moira Brown accepted the dishes with a frown. The crow's feet around her hazel-green eyes deepened. "Oh, how nice, but I thought you were going to help me wash up and then we were going to sit down and plan out the big family reunion, Thanksgiving dinner. You know how much your out-of-state cousins are dying to see you. They haven't seen you since... since..."
"Since I was snatched by the alien vampires?" Olivia blurted before she thought better of it.
Her mother cringed and the plates chattered as her hands shook. Olivia rushed to her mother's side to take the dishes before she dropped them. She gently placed them onto the table and put a comforting arm around Moira's shoulders, then helped her to a chair.
"Sorry, Mom. I didn't mean to upset you." Again. Upsetting you is all I ever do nowadays. I've become an expert at making you upset, without even trying.
"It's all right, baby. I apologize my poor heart took a turn for the worse while you were gone."
Olivia sat in silence and patted her mother's back until the shaking subsided. People act amazed when they discover how I was able to survive on another world, but don't they ever wonder how the families of the abductees survived? It's amazing how well they've faired, what with all the stress, all the fears and terror of not knowing what happened to their loved ones. They deserve a medal—not me.
Olivia's phone alerted her to an incoming text. She pulled it out of her jacket pocket and glanced at it. "Yeah, it's Britt, asking what's up. I'll tell her I'll see her another time."
"No, you go along and visit your friend. You've been very busy these past few months. We can talk about Thanksgiving later." Moira straightened up and kissed Olivia's cheek. "Say hello to Britt for me. I heard from her uncle she's made the Dean's List at State. You know you could, too, if you'd enroll in—"
"Classes at the college," Olivia filled in for the millionth time. "Yes, I know. I'm off to see Britt. See you in a little while, Mom."
Olivia dashed to the front door and departed before her mother could get another word in edgewise.
She strolled down the street at a clip, deftly sidestepping their absent-minded neighbor's German Shepherd's large and fragrant calling card. She took extra caution not to slip on the damp fallen leaves plastered on the uneven sidewalks. When she was several houses away and out of sight from their front window, she took out her phone and returned Hernando's call.
"I got your text," she told his voice mail. "You can call me now if you like. I plan on being out of the house for the next few hours. Are you sure you can't get me a position on the next junket you're going on? I'm willing to travel anywhere—and I mean anywhere. My folks are driving me crazy."
She felt guilty for saying it out loud, but it was the truth. As she strode down the street toward her friend's home she realized the Olivia Brown most of her acquaintances knew didn't exist anymore. She had turned eighteen, and for sure she wasn't her parents' dear little Ollie girl anymore. She had survived difficult situations while handling dangerous individuals and had returned more-or-less intact to deal with Earth's anal-retentive civil authorities for several months of hell. She felt more confident in her abilities and opinions than she had before her ordeal.
Olivia knew she would never be content with going to college and studying to be a civil rights lawyer as she had thought she would before her abduction. Sure, she wanted to help others make the world a more just place, but there wasn't only the one world anymore. Mankind had to acknowledge intelligent life existed on at least two worlds.
The angry graffiti spray-painted across the brick sidewall of the closed corner store reinforced this concept: JOBS FOR HUMANS ONLY! DAMN VAMPIRES—STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM OUR PLANET!
"I figured they'd blame them for the unemployment rate sooner or later." Her friend Jace's droll voice interrupted her thoughts.
Olivia turned and smiled at the pale, freck
led kid dressed in black sweats, his baseball cap on backward as usual. He sat on his younger brother's bicycle across the street. "To think just a few decades ago this crude comment would have been directed at a particular human racial or ethnic group," she said sighing. "My, my, humanity has improved in its expressions of bigotry."
"Next thing you know, they'll be blamed for the climate changing."
"And for depleting and polluting our ground water, not that fracking had anything to do with it." She shook her head in disgust, then crossed the street to give her old friend a hug. "It's so good to see you, Jace. It's good to know you haven't fallen for all the bad press about the Pure Bloods and other peoples of BloodDark."
Jace brokered a weak grin. "Well, I reserve the right to update my opinions of the vampires after Lauren gives me her report of what it's like."
Olivia's eyes widened. Her jaw dropped open. "Don't tell me... Your half-sister is actually going to become a vampire mail-order bride?"
"Yep. She figures after the divorce she wants something more permanent with a guy she can trust, and when she heard how well the Pure Bloods treated their human mates and how loyal they were..." He shrugged. "My mom went ballistic, but Lauren is thirty years old. What can we do about it? It's her life."
"I wish you'd have contacted me earlier. I'd have set her straight." Olivia sighed. "Times have changed, haven't they?"
He laughed. "Ha. No kidding. To think, a year ago we were both seniors in high school. Now look at us—I'm a part-time pizza delivery boy and paper deliverer and a part-time college student with a solid B average in your dad's Civil War and Reconstruction history class, and you're a...whatever you are. You finally got your high school diploma, right?"
"My G.E.D. I took the test while I was in quarantine. It helped to pass the time."
"I'd forgotten they'd locked you all up like you were criminals, thinking you could be contagious or something." He lowered his voice. "It must have been unpleasant."
"Not all of it." Olivia smiled to herself as she remembered for six weeks she had Hernando's attention almost to herself in their group confinement. "We were allowed carefully monitored phone calls and visits from family members—only those deemed not to be security risks—and they had to swear not to reveal our presence to anyone on fear of imprisonment. Other than those Orwellian conditions, it was a nice, long vacation."
Jace narrowed his eyes, crossed his arms and leaned back. "Sure, a vacation. I'd almost believe you. If it hadn't been for the one investigative reporter and his YouTube broadcasts breaking your story around the world, I'm not sure you and the others would have been released at all."
She nodded. "You're right. We all are grateful to Mr. Galindez and his team for getting our stories out there. After all, Hernando representing the government of BloodDark deserved better. Locking up diplomats is a crime."
"Not when it could mean the end of the world as we know, it isn't." Jace nodded toward the graffiti. "They should have realized when the public found out we'd been visited by aliens for over a millennia, and we could travel there ourselves, we'd want changes for the better here on this planet. The number of governments toppled and career politicians out of a job these days?" He gave a long whistle. "You've really shaken things up here in the 'hood, Ollie."
"Me?" She looked cross-eyed at him and stuck out her tongue. "I'm not powerful. I'm just one woman who wants to normalize relations between our two worlds."
"One woman with a friend who owns a very cool limo with dark window tinting, it seems."
Olivia spun around and saw the vehicle Jace had observed coming up the road behind her. The official flag of the BloodDark government—a half white/half black circle against a blue, starry background—fluttered from the car's antenna. It pulled up to the corner and stopped. The back window lowered, revealing the passenger within.
"Get in, Olivia. We need to talk," Hernando said.
Chapter Two
"Wow, what a quick reply. I just left you a voice mail."
"I didn't see it. I must have missed it." Hernando took out his Smartphone and fumbled with it for a moment. Olivia forgot how uncomfortable Hernando was with all the Earth technology thrust upon him as the BloodDark ambassador and wondered if he'd consider hiring her back as his personal assistant. She turned and waved good-bye to Jace then crawled into the backseat. The driver began driving toward her house.
"Hey, I was going the opposite way." She took the phone from Hernando and showed him how to retrieve his messages and then put it to his ear to listen. "You don't mind visiting Britt's house for a few hours, do you?"
"Uh, thanks, and no, we can't stop for a visit to Britt's. I need you to gather your things as quick as you can if you're going to come with me. It's what you're saying in this voice mail, right?"
"It is, but..." Guilt washed over her. "I was thinking of leaving after the holidays. Remember, I told you about this big reunion my family is planning. I don't want to disappoint them."
"Of course not. It's why I let you go home in the first place. Your parents needed you. It was stressful for them while you were...away. You traveling all over your own planet with me didn't ease their stress upon your return. Perhaps, it's better if you stay with them for a little while longer."
She wrinkled up her nose as they turned into the driveway. "You sound so mature and reasonable, Hernando. Makes me feel childish for whining in the first place."
"You have the right to feel the way you do." He pulled her into his arms and kissed her until she melted against him. "I've missed you these past few weeks, Olivia."
"I've missed you, too." She snuggled closer. "Is this why you dropped by the neighborhood?"
"Not entirely. I was on my way to a solar-powered vehicle manufacturing conference in Detroit, so I thought I'd stop by and give you this." He pulled away and reached into a cloth bag marked as an official diplomatic pouch from BloodDark and handed her two letters. "Both Valori and Annara wrote to you."
"Thanks." Olivia accepted the envelopes with a smile, cherishing the familiar handwriting on them. "It's so old-fashioned, but nice. I wish we girls could Skype or text in real time, but I suppose the laws of physics must be obeyed."
Hernando laughed. "You sound like the determined scientist who kept grilling us about how the Portal worked right after we arrived. 'The laws of physics must be obeyed!' he kept saying over and over. Why should space-warping, sub-atomic particles obey a boring person like him? He really thought he was the Earth's smartest person."
"As if." Olivia rolled her eyes and giggled. "What part about your explanation of an instantaneous trans-dimensional particle transit beam didn't he get? You'd think he'd never heard of time travel and the special theory of non-relativity before."
A rap on the car window brought them back to the present. Olivia scooted over to the door and lowered the window on her side. "Hi, Mom. Hernando stopped by to say hello. He's on his way to Detroit."
"Hello again, Mrs. Brown," Hernando said, using his best diplomatic tone. "Olivia tells me the plans for the big family reunion are coming together."
"They'd come together faster if a certain young lady would put her mind to them and help out."
A cold chill washed over Olivia. Her mother didn't sound or look too happy. Moira clenched her teeth and a small tic had begun at the corner of her mouth. "It's not what you think, Mom. I'm staying put. Hernando is just visiting this time."
Moira Brown visibly relaxed. "Pardon my manners, but won't you and your driver come in for some dessert? I just took a caramel-apple crisp out of the oven."
Olivia shrugged. "Do you have a few minutes?"
"I think we do. How about it, T.J.?"
Hernando's well-built driver turned around and grinned. "You know I'd never say no to an apple crisp, boss. We can always floor it on the interstate and make up for any lost time."
"Good man. It's settled." Hernando beamed a smile of pure charm at Olivia's mother. "We'd love to sample your delicious caramel-apple crisp.
"
The next half hour proceeded without incident. Olivia sent Britt a text and apologized for not making it over to visit her as planned. Her mother and father both acted friendly toward Hernando and T.J. and dished out big servings of apple crisp topped with vanilla ice cream for everyone. All in all, it was an enjoyable autumn Sunday afternoon. Olivia put down her empty bowl on the dining table and took a deep breath. Just as she felt confident nothing could go wrong, the question popped up in conversation.
"When are you planning to go home to your planet, Hernando?" her father asked in an innocent manner. "I'm sure your folks must miss you."
"They do, but they know I have important things to do here on Earth for the good of our world."
Olivia bit her lip. Leave it there, Dad. Don't say anything else, Hernando..
"Didn't you take them out to Los Angeles to visit your long lost relatives a few weeks back?" her father probed. His calm, deep baritone, along with his graying at the temples and horn-rimmed reading glasses perched at the end of his aquiline nose, gave Julian Brown the professorial air he craved.
"It was on the news here as well?" Hernando grinned uneasily.
Olivia had tried to impress on Hernando how fast news traveled across the globe, and how journalists were eager to follow him and report on every aspect of his professional and personal life, but he didn't seem to get it. He couldn't understand humankind's fascination with him. It was one reason why she wouldn't hold his hand in public or give any indications they were attracted to each other. The paparazzi would follow her around if they thought she and Hernando were a couple.
None of those precautions had fooled her parents. They knew. Of course, they didn't approve. She was their baby, their only child, and she was way too young to have a boyfriend who was an alien ambassador.
"Dad, why don't you tell us all about the new current affairs course you're developing?" Olivia asked, hoping against hope to steer her father into more neutral territory. "What was the title? Humanity's Relationship to the Cosmos and Extraterrestrial Life? It would be the first of its kind ever, right?"
Olivia's Return Page 1
