by Shea Malloy
Table of Contents
About
1 Karen
2 Kess
3 Karen
4 Kess
5 Karen
6 Kess
7 Karen
8 Karen
9 Kess
10 Karen
11 Epilogue
Preview: Out of this World
More by Shea Malloy
THE ALIEN COMMANDER'S BABY
SHEA MALLOY
—
Copyright © 2017, Shea Malloy
All rights reserved.
This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locations is purely coincidental. The characters are all productions of the author’s imagination.
Contents
About
1 Karen
2 Kess
3 Karen
4 Kess
5 Karen
6 Kess
7 Karen
8 Karen
9 Kess
10 Karen
11 Epilogue
Preview: Out of this World
More by Shea Malloy
About
In search of me, I found you.
Impulsive is Karen Landay's middle name. Sometimes there are perks to leaping first and asking questions later. Sometimes that leap can land you pregnant for a rude as hell alien commander.
She should hate Kess Reihan. He's ungrateful, he's arrogant, and he's overbearing. He's exactly the sort of man she's hardened her heart against. But in dangerous moments, he's her protector. His violet eyes burns her from the inside out, his scorching touch obliterates her common sense.
Kess has only allowed himself one course in life: finding his brother's murderer. He has no time or patience for love, let alone fatherhood. But when the human woman with the brilliant blue eyes charges into his life, he questions his goals.
Karen tempts him beyond reason, her soft flesh and sweet, selfless nature irresistible. Even though Kess knows he shouldn't have her, he can never let her go.
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1
Karen
—
Tell them.
Karen bit into the sweet dumpling on her plate. If she stuffed her face until her cheeks strained from the effort to contain the food, she wouldn’t be able to speak. The traitorous voice in her head would shut up and leave her alone.
Tell them.
No. Not the right time.
But when would there ever be the perfect time to tell your family you were going to be a huge disappointment yet again? Not to mention she was leaving the day after next. She was not the sort to hide the truth.
Yet she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t tell her family she was considering dropping out of medical school to pursue her dream in massage therapy.
Presently, she was having dinner with her sisters, Jillian and Megan. Jillian, her eldest sister, had recently given birth to a beautiful baby girl named Tamiah. Now she and Megan, who had a handsome toddler named Kelan, were swapping stories about the adorable things their children did.
Their eyes were bright with excitement, their features content. Although Karen envied her sisters, she was happy for them too. Megan and Jillian had endured some unpleasant periods in their lives. Life had reshuffled the deck and dealt them both a lucky hand.
They had adorable children and great careers. They were both in healthy, loving and extraordinary relationships. After all, her sisters weren’t married to normal, human men. Her sisters’ husbands were aliens.
Hot, bronze, violet-eyed, muscular beings from a planet named Omaron.
“The Zuirs have not won a game in seventy standard years,” said Mikaal, Megan’s husband and the king of Omaron. Despite his cool, reserved exterior, his deep love for Megan was obvious whenever he looked at her. “What makes you think they stand a chance this season?”
“I know they will win this season,” said Jonnar, Jillian’s husband. He was an army general until he’d recently switched gears to be an engineer. Jonnar had a more jovial, easygoing attitude, but held a similar devotion for Jillian like his best friend, Mikaal, did for Megan.
“Stubborn loyalty will not make a terrible team succeed,” said Mikaal, chuckling.
“It’s fun to root for the underdog,” said Karen. She’d have to talk about sports since she couldn’t relate with the baby stuff. For years she’d felt like a gap existed between her and her sisters. There was a veritable ocean between them now that her sisters shared this major commonality. “There’s greater satisfaction in their victory after enduring all that disappointment when they sucked.”
Jonnar laughed. “Exactly.”
The dinner came to an end when Jillian and Jonnar decided to leave. They claimed they were tired, but Karen knew better by the barely concealed sexual tension in their body language. Megan and Mikaal couldn’t hide their desire for each other, either.
Was there something in the wine? Put off by the thought of being a fifth wheel, Karen polished off her glass and headed for her room.
She lay in bed for a while, unable to fall asleep. Her mind whirred as the ever present worry weighed on her chest. Her leave-of-absence from school was coming to an end soon and she had to make a decision.
Drop out and pursue a dream, yet be a failure, again, in the eyes of her family.
Continue and be miserable, possibly a failure in the eyes of her teachers and peers.
Frustrated, she decided she’d tire herself out with a late night stroll. Perhaps she’d visit the palace medic. He was a Lutvian being named Zezvar. He had spotted skin and short, alabaster-coloured tusks. Karen thought he looked exactly like the aliens she’d seen in movies.
She liked to visit his lab as he was excellent company. Quirky, funny, and brilliant, the devotion he had for his medical work was akin to romantic love. It further reinforced to Karen that she’d made a mistake forging a career as a doctor.
Medicine was a field one had to genuinely love and enjoy to flourish, to persevere in the times of adversity and burnout. It wasn’t a career for the weak or the indecisive. It wasn’t something to do just because one wanted to make their family proud.
She wished she’d known these truths before she’d jumped feet first into it, but that was just like her, wasn’t it? Leap first, ask questions later, wallow in regret afterwards.
Karen increased her pace, hoping to outwalk her thoughts. When a problem didn't have an immediate solution, there was nothing more relieving than sweeping it under the rug and pretending that hard, conspicuous lump didn’t exist.
Two four-armed, blue-skinned Ahmenians stood guard at the main doors to the pathway to the infirmary. Their black eyes regarded her dispassionately, the stark light in this area adding a menacing gleam to the tips of the spears occupying their foremost hands. They wore black vests that were home to an array of knives. Their hulking frames were almost as tall as the door they guarded.
“Hello,” she greeted with a wavering smile. They gave her a short nod, never uttering a word as usual. It was a work-in-progress getting used to their fearsome presence, even if Megan had assured her of the Ahmenians’ unbending loyalty to everyone they protected within the palace.
The doors slid open as she neared it. The Ahmenian guards did not challenge her as she went past them. She followed the familiar turns to Zezvar’s office. As she
approached his doors, they slid open on their own. A man exited, pausing briefly to regard her.
Karen forgot to breathe as the man’s vibrant violet eyes pinned her where she stood. She felt incapable of moving, like if the man’s stare had that much power. She didn’t doubt it. She knew Jonnar and Mikaal had telekinetic abilities. But her inability to move or make sound was more than just telekinesis. It was this strange sense that this was some sort of momentous occasion in her life and fate was forcing her to stop and be aware of the unfolding.
“You’re not Zezvar,” she said, immediately feeling stupid. What she’d wanted to say was, “Who are you and why are you in Zezvar’s office so late at night?” The doors were still open and she had a clear view of the room. The Lutvian medic was nowhere to be seen.
“Clearly,” he said. His caustic tone broke the spell he had over her and it occurred to Karen she’d met the man before. Yeah. He was that rude asshole she’d encountered along her way to visit Jillian after she gave birth to Tamiah. He’d seemed unwell and incapable of standing without support. When she tried to assist him, he’d snapped at her to leave him alone.
He had dark hair pulled into a low, messy bun. She’d never found guys with longish hair attractive, but this man was the exception. Tall and with a strong build, he was unquestionably handsome even if his skin had an unhealthy pallor and shadows lingered beneath his eyes. His violet eyes were his most striking feature and they pegged him as a Dava male. Yet a dark anger lurked in their depths that discomforted her.
She frowned. “Is Zezvar here?”
“No.” He strode down the path to the back exit. She pursued him.
“So what were you doing in his office?” she asked his broad back.
He paused, turning to glare at her. “I don’t see how that’s any of your concern, human.”
“My sister and my brother-in-law owns this place so, technically, it is my concern if some stranger is skulking around.” Karen folded her arms beneath her breasts, returning his glare. “You could be up to no good.”
“And if I were,” his visible annoyance gave way to a chilly, dangerous tone as he advanced on her in an intimidating manner. “What could you do about it?”
Karen licked her lips. Fear ran an icy finger up her spine. Damn, she’d done it again. Leapt first, consequences be damned. How could she have been so stupid to confront this stranger? Who knew what he was capable of?
Karen edged away from him, dropping her hands to her sides. He loomed over her, at a clear advantage in height and strength even though he appeared unwell.
“I’m not afraid of you,” Karen said, though the tremble in her voice said otherwise.
He leaned forward, bringing with him a tantalizing scent that left her in a confused state of awakening arousal.
“You should be.”
Her lips parted on a soft exhale of dread and the man’s gaze fell to her mouth. The hard anger in his eyes dimmed but did not abate, and he stared at her lips with interest. Was he thinking about kissing her? Instead of being sensible and screaming at the top of her lungs for the guards who were nearby, she held her breath, foolishly awaiting his next move.
A trill sounded. The man backed away from her and glanced at the black strip wrapped around his wrist. It pulsed red. He uttered something beneath his breath that sounded like a curse. Then he removed the strip from his wrist and spoke in rapid, clipped Omar language as he stalked away from her.
—
On her last night on Omaron, Karen rediscovered the palace hovercar station.
Once again, she suffered the inability to fall asleep. She was set for her return to Earth tomorrow, and she’d yet to tell her sisters about the war of indecision that raged in her head. She justified her cowardice by telling herself she’d much rather enjoy the time left with her sisters and their children. But just like she’d learned in school, the body always knew what was wrong. Always. Even when an individual wasn’t conscious of it yet. The body intrinsically rejected anything harmful to its system. Most times, it had a quick way of showing its objection to foreign matter.
So she supposed her mild insomnia had to do with the fact that her body knew she was full of bullshit.
Instead of paying Zezvar a visit, she followed a new path, one she remembered taking with her sisters on their trip to the main city, Onhya. As she walked, she recalled her encounter with the violet-eyed man the night before. She realized she’d forgotten to alert anyone of his possibly unauthorized presence. In retrospect, it dawned on her that if he was in Zezvar’s office, it meant he’d gone past those Ahmenian guards. Those hulking beings would have prevented his access if he’d had any unsavoury intentions.
He’d appeared ill. Perhaps he’d gone to Zezvar for assistance. She felt guilty at the thought her accusations might have scared him off from the medical attention he required.
Stepping through another pair of doors, she stood outside on a platform. Three, black, oval-shaped vehicles hovered over a marked and lighted track at the edge of the platform. The well-lit area added an inviting gleam on the hovercars’ sleek exterior. The front-most hovercar’s inner lights pulsed blue and a short ramp extended as she drew nearer.
She entered the hovercar and sat in the driver’s seat. Megan had said that even though they could be driven manually, they were capable of autopilot driving. The array of buttons and knobs on the panel daunted her. But if she could handle the convoluted medical simulators in school, she felt certain she could tackle this.
“Language,” she said as Megan had taught her. Mikaal had ensured all Omaron technology be upgraded with this feature. One of many ways he’d integrated his human wife’s culture into his kingdom.
The hovercar’s default language settings switched to legible English text instead of the Omaron glyphs Karen still struggled to learn. She peered at the map on the control panel’s screen.
“A quickie drive can’t hurt, right?”
She answered her own question by jabbing the screen with her finger on a location that seemed close by. In the event she got lost, at least it wouldn’t be a hardship to find her way back to the palace. She hoped.
“Auto-pilot,” she said, unsure if the hovercar would accept that command. She grinned in triumph when the hovercar vibrated gently. Its inner lights pulsed again as the ramp retracted. An invisible force strapped her in her seat and the hovercar zoomed out of the station at a break neck speed. She saw nothing but a blur outside the hood’s transparent glass.
“Slow down!” she cried out, relieved when the vehicle decreased its speed to a normal level. The palace was already a minuscule white dot in the darkness behind her. She eyed the map again and frowned. She was nowhere near the marker she’d appended to it. This map was definitely a case of ‘objects are farther away than they appear’.
Alright. She’d had enough adventure for one night. Her bed seemed a lot more appealing now when she was faced with the possibility of being lost on an alien planet.
“Take me home,” she said, but the hovercar puttered along. It veered off its main track onto another that wound through a forested area. The headlights barely cut through the cloak of thick darkness. Up ahead, a being came into view running toward her in the path of the hovercar.
Panicked, she ordered the hovercar to stop. The hovercar ground to a halt and it occurred to Karen she’d made a mistake.
Everything happened so quickly, she wasn’t sure if she’d frozen or if time had sped up at twice the speed. She gawked at the being running toward her. It was naked save for a metallic collar around its neck, its blue skin and emaciated frame spotlighted in the headlights. The blue-skinned being shouted, but the glass hood prevented her from distinguishing the words. Nevertheless, fear and panic was evident in its high-pitched voice.
And that’s when she saw them. Two bipedal, reptilian beings dressed in skin-tight black suits in pursuit, their guns pointing forward. They fired off bright red shots, the sound like soft staccato knocks on a wooden door. Karen
screamed as the laser shots tore apart the blue-skinned creature in front of her. Its ink-coloured blood splattered grotesquely across the hovercar’s transparent hood.
“Go! Go!” she commanded. The hovercar resumed its pace but not fast enough. The lizard men shot at it. An error alert came to life on the screen and the vehicle juddered to a stop. The invisible force released her, the hood retracted, the doors slid open. Karen flew from the hovercar like if she’d acquired wings. Terror mounting, her vision blurred by tears, she pumped her legs. She dashed into the trees for cover from the laser shots whizzing by her. The scent of fresh grass and earthen soil surrounded her, the cool air didn’t alleviate her warm skin. She didn’t look back even as the sound of running feet pursued her. Looking back slowed you down, looking back got you killed—
Karen cried out when a solid force slammed into her back, sending her crashing face down onto the ground. Her forehead hit the tough, upraised tree root and her vision momentarily blurred. Rough hands rolled her onto her back and a beam of light chased the darkness away from her eyes. Terror left her parched, her heart slamming against her chest in time with the throbbing in her forehead.
One of the lizard men straddled her, holding a light over her face. Its skin the colour of moss, its cheeks sunken, its black eyes imbued with a malevolence Karen had never before seen in her twenty-six years of existence. The other lizard man snarled at her, and while she didn’t understand the words, she registered the threat in his voice.
He retrieved a metallic cylindrical device from his pockets. She didn’t know what it was and she didn’t care. Re-energized by fear, she squirmed and fought, struggling for escape.
“No!” Karen shouted. “No!”
Sneering, the lizard man squatted and slapped the flat of the cylinder against her neck. The device was cool against her skin and her whole body went numb. Useless. Tears of helplessness streamed down her face but she couldn’t feel them. She could no longer defend herself. The lizard man hauled her limp body up from the floor, slung her across his shoulders and carried her off into the forest’s darkness.
