Out of this World: Sci-fi Alien Dragon Shifter Romance (Celestial Mates)

by Shea Malloy

  “What the hell is going on?”

  As if summoned by Rosalind’s voice, a green-haired being appears.

  “You!” Rosalind spits. She attempts rushing forward at Leeka, who drifts backward with her hands upraised in a defensive gesture.

  “Hey, hey, hey, cool it, crazy lady. I’m here to take you both back home.” Leeka purses her mouth, her tone unapologetic. “Apparently, this was against protocol and now I’m trouble. I’m definitely not going to get Employee of the Millennium.” She glares at us both. “Thanks a lot. I just knew you two would be trouble.”

  “We are not to blame. This is all your doing,” I point out.

  “You kidnapped us!” Rosalind pipes up.

  Leeka’s glare transform into a mischievous grin. “Yes, well, you weren’t complaining much about that last night, were you?”

  Rosalind lets out a sound of righteous indignation and Leeka throws her head back with a cackle.

  Leeka’s laughter recedes. I’m no longer stationary. I’m falling. Where is Rosalind? I call out her name but I can’t hear myself so I’m uncertain she can hear me. I don’t like this and neither does my dragon. In flight, I’m completely certain of my abilities but in this strange limbo, I feel like a heavy stone plummeting to the ground.

  The odd sensation of movement comes to a stop. I open my eyes and immediately recognize the black marble flooring of my living quarters. When I don’t see Rosalind, I panic and worry about her safety until I realize Leeka must have returned her to her own quarters. I don’t know where Rosalind lives but I will find her.

  I get to my feet when I notice one of the blue plasti-paper Leeka had given to Rosalind and I before our adventure lying on the floor. I reread the list as I make my way to my bedroom. A smile tugs at my lips. I mentally check off every item on the list as the memories return to me.

  When I open my bedroom door, I’m stunned to find Rosalind lying on my bed.

  “That bitch sure has a sense of humour, doesn’t she?” She rolls her eyes and slaps the bed. “This is where she teleported me and I couldn’t move until you opened that door.”

  I smile and let the plasti-paper drift to the floor as I join her on the bed. I lean over her, relishing her perfection.

  “It’s because Leeka is an esteemed Celestial Mates agent who knows this is exactly where you’re supposed to be.”

  Her hazel eyes flash with a challenge.

  “I can move now. I can leave if I want.”

  “Do you want to leave, Rosie?”

  I lie on top of her and press my mouth against her jaw. Her blush is as pretty as her smell is delicious. Her soft body beneath mine and her tiny whimper as I explore her curves reverently makes me painfully hard.

  “No,” she says. “Never.”

  “Neither do I.”

  I kiss her deeply, savouring this moment when this stubborn, intelligent, feisty, stunning, loud mouthed human woman who was once my greatest rival became the love of my life.

  ***

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  Ana yawned. A big, open mouthed spread of her lips she couldn’t contain behind her hand. She’d been up since 3am since she was the one who had to open up the coffee shop. Now it was 8am and the tiredness was catching up to her. Not to mention she’d not gotten much sleep since her brother, Diego, had decided to return home drunk from yet another party.

  Ana let out a huff of irritation as she thought about Diego. They’d had another fight. Well, it was more her yelling at him about his increasing apathy toward being a functioning adult while he sat there in sullen silence doing his best to tune her out.

  It wasn’t like she’d asked to be the mother figure to him. She didn’t even have kids of her own. She was only twenty-four… well, twenty-five now that today was her birthday. She shouldn’t have to take care of a grown twenty-year old man. But this was what fate had thrown at them. And instead of being grateful that she’d stepped up to the plate to be there for him—unlike their shitty parents—he decided to repay all her hard work and sacrifice with irresponsibility and laziness.

  Ana grabbed a fistful of sugar packets from the box and angrily stuffed them into the container. Rush hour was tapering off. While Liz and Eric were handling the remaining lines of customers, Ana restocked the condiments bar that the previous customers had absolutely destroyed. One lady had been brazen enough to pick up the sugar container and shake all the packets into her bag.

  “Bad day?”

  Ana let out a little gasp of surprise and dropped the box of sugar packets. Her face heated a bit and she laughed with embarrassment as she met the gaze of her crush. His name was Jack and he was a customer that came by frequently. From the shiny gleam of his expensive-looking watch, and the way his suit fit him as if it were tailored to his body, Ana knew he was a successful man.

  His chocolate brown eyes often regarded her with interest and Ana couldn’t help but returning it in kind. Even though it was totally forbidden to flirt with customers, Ana couldn’t help herself. He was handsome and obviously wanted her, even if her ugly brown uniform didn’t do her appearance any favours and she constantly smelled like coffee. She felt flattered. Not to mention it had been a while since she’d been with anyone.

  “Sort of,” Ana said with a quick smile as she bent to retrieve the box from the floor.

  “Boyfriend problems?” he asked, an obvious fish for info on her relationship status.

  Ana blushed deeper. “No boyfriend. Just my brother being a total pendejo.”

  Jack laughed. “I only know enough Spanish to say, ‘Como estás?’ and ‘muy bien’ but I’m pretty sure what you just said was an insult.”

  Ana grinned. “Maybe. But a lady never tells—”

  “Torez, I need a word with you.”

  The curt, irritated voice calling her name wiped the smile from Ana’s face immediately. She raised her shoulders, her body instinctively protecting itself, as she turned to the source of the voice.

  Tony, her manager, glared at her, his black eyes filled with the usual contempt. Never a day went by when he didn’t ride someone’s case for the simplest thing. Ana was convinced he hated people in general, which was strange, since working at a coffee shop definitely ensured continued interaction with people.

  “Yes, Mr. Kulzac?” she said politely. She didn’t want to give him an excuse to ream her out, especially not in front of her crush. She glanced at Jack, who mouthed a silent ‘sorry’ as he moved away.

  “You’re on the clock, Torez,” he said, a little louder than he needed to as he clamped a hand on her upper arm and guided her away from the condiments bar. “You’re being paid to work, not to be Miss Chatty Cathy with customers.”

  Ana fumed and tugged her hand away from his aggressive grip. This was not the first time he’d invaded her personal space. She’d reported the first incident to upper management before, but nothing had changed except Tony becoming especially hateful toward her.

  Sometimes, she couldn’t believe this was what her life had come to. Six months ago, she was a decently-paid accounts manager at a telecommunications company. Now, she was a barista struggling to make ends meet while paying off student loans her college dropout brother had racked up.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Kulzac,” she said, but what she really wanted to say were the various English and Spanish insults coating her tongue, ready to lunge and slap him in his thin-moustached face.

  Tony sneered. “Yeah, well you can make it up to me by cleaning the men’s room.” He pointed at the mop bucket stationed near the ‘Employees Only�
� double doors, and his sneer transformed into a gleeful, sinister smile. “There’s a huge mess in one of the stalls you should take care of right away.”

  Ana trembled with rage, and as if Tony sensed she was on the brink of lashing out, he stood there and waited, an evil glint of satisfaction in his eyes. He wanted her to fuck up. He wanted her to react in anger so he’d have the excuse he’d always sought to fire her. Ana desperately wanted to give it to him. She was tired of taking his shit. She was tired of Diego’s uncaring attitude.

  She was just plain old tired.

  But her tía Paola hadn’t raised an idiota. She needed her job. It was hard enough getting this one in this terrible economy in the first place. She had bills to pay. Until one of the various places she’d applied to came through, she couldn’t do anything dumb.

  So Ana swallowed her anger and her pride. With an uncharacteristically meek response to Tony that she’d set herself to the task, she retrieved the mop bucket and headed for the men’s room. Mortified, she completely avoided eye contact with Jack as she passed him by.

  Tony was right; the mess in the bathroom was equal parts disgusting, horrifying, and angering. How could people treat public places like that? Did they also treat their own houses like a pigsty? Yet she did her job and tidied the stall. Finished, she wiped her sweaty forehead and prepared to leave when the door swung inward and a man walked in.

  She recognized him instantly. Wild, white hair. Intelligent blue eyes filled with an obvious but probably harmless bit of crazy behind wire-rimmed glasses. A white lab coat hanging on his bony shoulders that pegged him as a doctor or a scientist. He liked his coffee black with no sugar or milk or even creamer.

  Hausten, Ana thought. It was the name he gave to identify himself for his coffee, but Liz liked to call him ‘Bertie’ as a shorter form of Albert Einstein.

  “Hello, Ana,” he said, flashing her a smile. “Happy birthday.”

  Ana frowned. She’d never told anyone at work it was her birthday. She was not the sort to make a big deal about it, especially when the date was tainted by sadness and loss.

  “How did you know—”

  “Never mind that,” he said. He shoved his hand into one of the large pockets of his coat and produced a rectangular gift-wrapped box. Then he stepped closer and extended it to her. “Here. A gift for you.”

  Her gaze shifted between his face and the box. Her name was written in an untidy scrawl on the wrapping. Skepticism said she should back away or run. She didn’t know this man save for the times he came in and got his coffee. Sometimes, he’d be accompanied by a pretty, studious-looking brunette called Maria—no… Marissa—though she hadn’t seen the girl in a while.

  Yet her curiosity won over her uncertainty. Ana took the proffered gift with a small smile.

  “Thank you,” she said, pushing a dark curl that had escaped her ponytail behind her ear. “Why did you get me a gift? We don’t know each other very well.”

  “Because you deserve happiness, Miss Torez,” he said simply. “And love. Everyone does.”

  She opened her mouth to ask him more questions, but he spun and left the room before she could say a word. Bemused, Ana stood there holding the box, the glossy paper smooth against her palm. She held the box up to the fluorescent lights and inspected the pretty pastel blue wrapping and the word ‘Ana’ scribbled on the top.

  Qué es? Intrigued, she picked at the wrapping until it tore, revealing an ivory box with no inscription. It looked like a jewellery box and Ana’s eyebrows came together in a frown. If it were actual jewellery in there, she was not keeping it. She liked pretty things like the next girl, but accepting unwarranted gifts from a strange man was inviting a whole host of other problems.

  She opened the box to reveal a gorgeous silver watch. It glinted enticingly beneath the lights of the bathroom and Ana pursed her lips at it. Jewellery. Just like she’d guessed.

  Nevertheless, she lifted it free from its cushioning. The watch’s face was unlike anything she’d ever seen. Well, it sort of looked like a Simon Says game except it was divided into three colours: black, blue, and yellow. There was a lone hand and it pointed at the start of the black section.

  Placing the watch loosely over her wrist, Ana allowed herself a fleeting moment of satisfaction at seeing such an obviously expensive piece of jewellery against her caramel-coloured skin. Then she laid it flat on her palm, staring at it longingly as she struggled to convince herself it was the right decision to return it.

  It had been so long since she’d last owned something as pretty or given a gift. Money had been tight lately and all of it had gone toward the necessities, which on some days, she could barely afford, let alone anything trivial. Before she’d passed away, her tía Paola had always made it her mission to treat her with something nice on her birthdays. A part of Ana felt as though receiving the watch was like a gift from her tía from heaven, even if the messenger had been a probably crazy man wearing a lab coat and socks with sandals.

  Then she shook her head. She was being ridiculous. The stress of how shitty her life had been lately was getting to her head. The reality was that she would be bringing more trouble into her life by keeping something like this. She remembered the words the white-haired man had said about ‘everybody deserving love.’ That was definitely his intention, wasn’t it? To get some ‘love’ from her by giving her expensive jewellery.

  Resolved to find the man and give him back the watch, she smoothed her thumb over the watch face as she started to return it to the box. To Ana’s surprise, a bright purple light escaped from it, cloaking the room in violet.

  “Ay dios mio!” Ana cried in horror as the light from the watch face brightened, enveloping her. Then the coffee shop’s bathroom disappeared and black nothingness cloaked her. Something tight bound her like she was being squeezed into a tube ten sizes too small for her body. She lost all senses, yet her consciousness remained. She screamed but nobody heard her. She couldn’t even hear herself.

  She couldn’t feel it or see it, but her consciousness registered movement and a bright light growing larger. Like an opening to the darkness. Ana screamed again and this time she heard herself. She felt the whip of her hair against her cheeks and the flail of her arms and legs as she fell through that opening and face first onto something soft… and cold.

  She raised her face to look down at the ground, breathing hard and deep. She was lying on snow. At least, she thought it was snow. She couldn’t be sure. It had the consistency of snow except it had a bluish tint to it like when she’d accidentally spilled bleach on her tía’s favourite blue shirt many years ago.

  What the hell had just happened? Swaying between shock and terror, she got to her hands and knees.

  And that was when she noticed the pale pair of feet covered in blue markings right in front of her. Her gaze darted up past a pair of pale-skinned, marked shins, knees, and muscular thighs. Her mouth fell open at the sight of a penis between those thighs, stunned and horrified at its impressive girth and length despite its flaccidity. Up, up, up her gaze went past a toned stomach, sculpted chest, powerful arms, broad shoulders, and strong chin. Then her gaze connected with eyes the colour of shimmering, captivating silver.

  “Mierda…” she breathed out, her eyes stretched wide with terrified disbelief. Her heart slammed in her chest, her breathing too fast. It was all far too much for Ana to comprehend, so she closed her eyes and let her mind fall into blessed unconsciousness.

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