by E. M Reders
“Well, you kind of got drugged, again.”
“Drugged?” Jessie asked, rolling onto her back and looking up at the ceiling with a concentrated frown. Eyes lighting up with remembrance, Jessie bolted from the bed before stumbling back down.
“Take it easy, the drugs aren’t completely out of your system yet.”
“Are you kidding me?” was Jessie’s screeched reply. “Those bastards are dead. I’m going to find the fuckers and smash them in the nuts with Katie’s handbag. I’m going to chop their cocks off and shove them up their...”
“OK, I get it,” she yelled, putting a stop to her friend’s tirade. She understood Jessie’s anger, would be enraged herself if she had been drugged and woken up in a strange place, again, but she felt protective of Jepa and Hecto. Now, if Jessie were planning to neuter one of the other males that had had something to do with their abduction and initial drugging, then she would have been totally on board.
“Where are we?”
“Deck seven. It’s an especially altered deck of the ship designed for humans. It’s like one massive common room with bedrooms running off it. And there are other humans too, quite a few of them.”
Now that got her friend’s attention.
“Really? Maybe they can help us escape,” she said, forcing herself back to her feet and moving instantly towards the door, which luckily was a normal human door, with a handle and everything.
Escape? Oh, this was not good.
“What do you mean no?”
Hannah groaned inwardly. Her friend had had this argument with every human on deck seven that she had come into contact with since waking an hour ago, and every time her screams got higher. It was obvious to all that these guys were here at their own freewill. Why? She still had no clue, but they were there of their own choice.
“I don't get it, Hannah. Do you think they have been brainwashed like Nora and Alice have?”
Brainwashed? Was that really what Jessie thought?
OK, so maybe she would have happily jumped to that conclusion too before she had met the twins. Hell, if Jessie knew about her connection to the pair, her friend would think her insane.
“I think that for whatever reason, they chose to be here. Now come on, I'm hungry, let’s see if we can get anything edible from one of these damn machines.”
It did take a while but they eventually found something they could at least pretend to stomach. She wasn’t sure how long the aliens had been on Earth, but they certainly hadn’t spent their time learning what good food tasted like.
“Hey,” Katie said, skipping up to them with a wide smile. “I feel clean and refreshed. What’s to eat?”
“Shit,” was Jessie’s quick snap of a reply.
“Oh dear, someone is a little grouchy.”
“She is, but she’s not lying. This stuff tastes foul, but it’s the easiest to stomach.”
As they sat there prodding at the slop on their plates, looks of disgust on their faces, something stirred inside her. She felt drawn to the other side of the room, and somehow she knew it was because one of them were approaching.
She was sat with her back to the main door of the deck but she felt his gaze upon her and his mind rub against hers the instant the door melted away. Jepa was here. She didn’t know where Hecto was and could feel Jepa’s worry for his brother, but he didn’t speak to her as she longed for him to do, didn’t put her mind at ease. Instead, he stood there, his eyes glued to her back the whole time.
“What’s he staring at?” Jessie snapped, glaring over her shoulder at Jepa.
“The same thing he and the other one was staring at the whole way here from the holding bay,” Katie giggled. “Hannah.”
“They did not.” It might have been more convincing had her cheeks burned bright at that moment.
“Did too. I think Hannah has an admirer, or two. I swear that one’s eyes were glued to her ass the whole way.”
Really?
“Fucking stalkers.”
Chapter 11
Hecto had been working up the courage to face his mate, to tell her about his problem after she had heard the voice of madness from within his mind, but it had only been once his brother could accompany him that he had the strength to do so. They had been on their way to deck seven when the worst had happened...
They had been called for assessment.
His brother went first, obviously, hoping that something would come up to delay his, but they were not so lucky. As Jepa exited the room, communicating that they would make a switch - as they had done many times in their youth - and he would take the assessment for him, Doc followed, not giving them the opportunity.
“Just be calm. Push the voice down deep and lock it up, hide it where it cannot be found. I will not let anything happen to you.”
“I know, brother. I know.”
Following Doc back into the room, Hecto took the seat indicated to him and tried his best to do what his brother had said but it was no use, the voice just would not give in.
“Hecto? Hecto? Are you listening to me?”
Blinking his eyes rapidly, he brought his attention back to his old friend and nodded. There had once been a time when he would find it extremely easy to talk to another, but now. With the madness chipping away at more of him every day, he just couldn't.
“Before we get started I wanted to ask if there was anything you would like to tell me, anything at all?”
“No,” he forced passed his lips.
With a sad smile and a nod of the head, Doc stood. After placing two senses on either side of his temples, Doc moved to the other side of the room. “You will feel a warm, tingly sensation where the senses have been placed. Just sit still and relax, it will only take a moment.”
OK, he could do this. He could sit here on this chair and calm his mind. Maybe with his mind blank and peaceful he could fix the results, fool the test.
As the minutes ticked by and the tingling that had started at his temples increasing, he started to think that maybe he could pull it off. Unfortunately, just as his anxiety reduced, the voice decided to make an appearance.
“Shouldn’t be here. Should be with her. Find her. Claim her. Make her ours for all eternity. And if anyone gets in the way... tear them to pieces.”
“Shut up,” he growled back. “Don’t do this to us now, not when we are so close. You will lose us everything.”
“Not lose. Gain. Gain our mate. Claim our mate. Take her, take her now!”
Opening eyes that he hadn't even noticed he had closed, he saw a concerned look on Doc’s face as he gazed at whatever the senses were telling him. When the Doc’s shoulders slumped, sadness radiating from him, and he moved to tap something into his wrist communicator, Hecto knew he needed to do something. The male knew. He knew that Hecto had the madness and was going to order a team in here to either detain him or take him out.
But Hecto had a mate, a mate that he had yet to claim but a mate all the same. There was no way he was going to allow this male to stop him doing so.
With a roar, he dived at Doc, the senses tearing from his skin. “No!”
“Destroy him. Kill the male that would keep us from our mate.”
Tempting, but he wasn’t that far gone in that moment that he would take one of his fellow Chaetdorian’s lives.
“Hecto, calm my friend,” Doc said, his hands raised in the air, the command he had started to type left unfinished. “You are sick. You know this has to happen. You know the dangers.”
No, it didn’t. He had a chance at salvation, a chance to fix his broken mind. Didn’t he deserve that chance?
“Not yet,” he bit out, doing his best to fight the voice inside that demanded blood. “I’ve found her, Doc. My mate is one of the human females Torq brought on board. Once I claim her it will all go away.” Or at least he and his brother hoped it would.
“That’s just the madness talking, Hecto.”
More words flew from his mouth, surprising them both. “No, it�
�s not! Ask him. Ask Jepa. He can tell you the truth, tell you the connection we both feel to her. You’ve tested him already. He has no signs of madness, you know that. Ask him and let him clarify my story. I promise you, Doc, I will not harm one hair on my mate’s head or any of the other females. Just give me a chance, please. I promise, if it doesn’t work, if claiming our mate does not drive the voice from my mind, then I will not fight, I will willingly give myself up. But please, don’t take my one last hope away from me.”
Hecto had never begged for anything in his life, but with not only his life on the line but the life of his twin, he was desperate. There was also the fact that he wasn’t sure how far their connection to Hannah went. Jepa and Hecto were tied on a soul-deep level. If one died so did the other. What would happen to her if they were no more?
“I don’t know, Hecto,” Doc said, shaking his head. “You are asking me to put the safety of everyone on board at risk.”
“I know I am. But Doc, I’ve had this for months now and nothing has happened, I’ve been able to fight it.” Which was a complete and utter lie. “Just give me so more time. Please.”
It wasn’t working, he could see it in the Doc’s eyes that even though he felt bad, didn’t want to make the call, he was going to.
There was only one thing left to do... he had to aim low.
“Don’t sentence Jepa to a death he does not deserve when his mate is so near.”
Sighing deep, the male's body relaxed and his hand moved away from his communicator.
“I’ll give you five days, but no more. Then I want you back in here for assessment. If the madness is still there, then, even if you have claimed your mate, I will report you for containment and disposal.”
That was all he could ask for.
Chapter 12
“Where are you, brother?”
“Down on deck seven, Corr and Teks wants us to escort the females to meet with their friends,” he explained.
He hadn’t wanted to leave his brother alone, not when he knew what Doc would discover upon his assessment, but he couldn’t give Teks a reasonable excuse as to why he disobeyed an order. Still, it took everything in him to walk away from the medibay and his twin.
“Are you OK?”
It seemed to take his brother a little longer than usual to answer. Had something happened?
“I am fine, but time is of the essence. Doc will only keep my secret for so long. We have to claim our mate, Jepa, otherwise, all is lost.”
“And we will.” He hoped.
Thirty minutes later and the pair were escorting Hannah, Katie and one very angry and aggressive Jessie to the food bay. To say the female they had drugged was upset was an understatement. Jepa felt sorry for the guy that would one day end up saddled with her.
“You can go now,” the venomous one snapped when they arrived at their destination. “It’s not like we needed your assistance in the first place.”
Turning, they removed themselves from the room, allowing the females some sense of privacy but not going far. They couldn’t, the mating urge was getting stronger, the need for their mate greater. And if Jepa thought it was bad for him, he dreaded to think what his brother was feeling. The only reason he didn’t was because of Hecto's tight control on the connection between them.
“That is one thing I am grateful for, brother, that I can shield you from it.”
“But you shouldn’t have to. We are one, Hecto, we should share all.”
“And we do... did. But this is one burden you should not bare. If anything, I think it is you that has kept me as sane as I possibly can be. If not for you, I would have succumbed a very long time ago. That being said, I do not think I can last much longer, not now I know she is here, have scented her essence in the air. I want her, brother, badly.”
“So do I, brother. So do I.”
“You can go now,” Jessie snapped. “It’s not like we needed your assistance in the first place.”
They may not have needed them, but Hannah had been more than happy when the pair had turned up to escort them to see their friends. If felt like forever since she had seen them, and while they did not talk through the strange metal link they had with her, she felt them near in a way other than physical.
“So, now that the stalker twins have left, care to explain yourself?” Jessie demanded, her sharp eyes focused on Alice. It would be a long time before she forgave Alice for sticking them in this predicament.
“Oh leave her alone, Jess,” Katie stepped in. “It’s not her fault she’s a soft touch for a tall, well-muscled, scary-looking alien.”
Eyes wide, breath hitching, Alice began, “I’m not…”
“Oh yes, you are. I saw your face when that hunk came into the room. And I saw your reaction to him back in that alley. Can’t say I blame you either, these aliens are ridiculously hot.”
Hot was an understatement, especially when it came to the twins.
“Corr thinks that Torq might be Alice’s mate,” Nora interrupted. “Says he’s been acting all strange since the mission that ended with us being brought here.”
Hannah couldn’t help the shriek of delight that escaped her at the thought of her friend being linked to the alien male the same way that Nora was to Corr. She deserved to be happy, to find her HEA. She only hoped that she too would find her perfect match… maybe with a certain set of identical twins?
Yeah, maybe that was stretching it a bit far. A few brief mind to mind conversations didn’t mean a thing. But still, a girl could dream.
“What mission?” Jessie asked.
“Well, have you noticed that some of the males look a little more human than others? It’s because they have been drinking human blood,” Nora explained.
“What?”
Hannah wasn’t the only member of the group to scream at that moment. What did she mean they had been drinking human blood?
“They can make themselves appear human by consuming human blood. But, apparently, because they have been doing it for so long, they can’t just give it up without suffering serious withdrawal, so Torq and the other Slayers were sent out to retrieve a group of human volunteers.”
Interesting.
“So there are others here, other humans?” Alice asked.
With her being separated from the rest of them she had no clue that deck seven existed.
“Yes. Fourteen apparently, though I believe their numbers just went up. The girls joined them last night. They have a whole deck of the ship to themselves,” Nora explained.
“Will they expect us to… you know… give up our blood?” Katie asked.
“I don’t think so. They may ask, but if you say no, I doubt they will try and force it.”
Hannah couldn’t imagine saying no, not to the twins at least. Though, if they drank blood to appear human, the twins were obviously not partaking in the habit. But still, the thought of their fangs in her neck had her body heating and her mind conjuring up all sorts of images. She had a feeling that night’s dream was going to be hotter than ever.
Chapter 13
“Hold on. You’re telling us that you had dreams of Torq doing ‘sexy things’ to you before you actually met him.”
“Yes,” Alice admitted, her cheeks flaming.
Nora and her mate, Corr, had had their suspicions and it seemed that they had been dead on. Torq, the alien male that had been the one to take down Nora’s ex and abduct them all was Alice’s soulmate. He’d claimed her as his mate.
Alice had told them all about their whirlwind romance and Torq’s original reluctance to mate her, but that was not what sent Hannah’s mind into a spin and had her heart beating wildly in her chest. No, that was the dreams Alice had just admitted to having. Did the fact that she had been dreaming about twin lovers for months mean that she was destined for Jepa and Hecto? Since she had met them the faces of her dream lovers had been revealed to be them, and if anything, the dreams seemed more real than ever before. The moment she closed her eyes they were there, she
just wished when she opened them they wouldn’t disappear.
“It has to be a coincidence. Did you have dreams of Corr?” Jessie asked Nora.
“No. But maybe things are different for the other tribes. Corr is a Warrior. Torq is a Slayer. There might be some difference in how they find their mates. And anyway, Alice has always been sensitive to things. She knew we were going to be abducted.”
That was true. Alice had some kind of sixth sense, she always knew when something was going to happen in one of the women’s lives.
“No, I didn’t. I just had a sense that something was going to happen.”
“Well has anyone else had any dreams?” Hannah asked. She needed to know if it was just her and Alice or if the others were having the same thing. The twins were Slayers too, so maybe there was something in the whole tribes being effected differently thing. But still, could her having dreams of them really mean that she was their mate?
“Nope,” Jessie replied. The way the words quickly rushed from her mouth had Hannah’s interest sparking. Was her friend was hiding something?
Turning her gaze to Katie, she asked, “Well?”
“Arrghh,” Katie groaned, confusion filling her eyes. “I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know? It’s simple. Has a hunky, tattooed alien male with fangs and shining eyes been fucking you vigorously in your sleep?” Like two had been her only hours before. Last night’s dream had been... well, H.O.T! And the whole fangs thing? Yeah that had knocked the intensity dreams up a notch or two. She had half expected to see bite marks all over her body when she had looked in the mirror after waking.
“Well...”
“Oh my God, you have. You’ve been dreaming about one of them,” Nora sang happily, clapping her hands.
“Not exactly.”
Not exactly? What did that mean?
“Since we arrived here, I’ve been having this strange erotic dream. I’m with someone. A guy. But it’s all dark and I can’t figure him out. I can just feel what he does to me.”
“Can you see anything, feel anything that might hint at who he is?” Alice asked.
