Chosen by the Alien Hybrids

by Lia Nox

  I must admit, I was puzzled by this as well, though it troubled me far less than Talos—if danger was afoot, Delia wouldn’t be nearly as comfortable as she seemed to be.

  And surely, they had plans for a celebration just as energetic as ours.

  “Nothing’s wrong, as such, it’s just. . .”

  “Go on.” Talos pressed, his muscles so tightly clenched that I could almost feel his bones being compacted by them.

  “I want to get off this rock. That’s still the plan.” She sighed. “But I don’t want to leave without learning if Erin and I are the only ones,” Delia eventually admitted. “It’s too much of a coincidence that two human women ended up here. That, plus the extended time that it seems you were all kept in suspension.”

  “And the new beasts,” Axar added.

  “And the missing Masters,” Roth said.

  It wasn’t only us that took it this way either, as both groups of aliens exchanged unsettled expressions. Nobody was saying anything, but it was evident that Talos and his brothers shared the same worries as Axar and his men did: something was amiss. But as we all remained in strained silence, I became increasingly certain that it wasn’t just us being here that was amiss, but the planet in general.

  The Masters had gone, the buildings they’d constructed and lorded over suddenly abandoned, with them leaving their most prized possessions—the teams—behind.

  It made no sense, it reeked of a plan we weren’t yet privy to. There was something going on. Otherwise, there were too many random oddnesses, too many coincidences.

  “Do you mind if we speak alone?” Delia asked Roth while pointing at me.

  Roth helped me pull his shirt over my chest, then grudgingly stepped away.

  “We have much to discuss too. Axar, Tarnan, Zuvo—will you join us?” he requested, clearly trying to make the most of the time the two teams would have without us there to distract them.

  I dressed as fast as I could, careful to keep myself as hidden as possible while I did so, having sensed that Roth still didn’t want any more prying eyes roaming my curves. Not that I thought anyone would dare to now given the gravity of the situation we found ourselves in.

  As I wrapped the short skirt around my hips, I grumbled a little at Delia.

  I was so happy to see her, but the troubling information she’d brought to us had turned the atmosphere sour.

  And really, was there anything we could do about it?

  Delia could tell my mood towards her was in a state of flux, as the moment we started to walk away from where the guys were now stood in animated discussion, she kept giving me sideways glances.

  “You’re annoyed at me.” She stated all of a sudden, throwing me off guard.

  I exhaled, my body feeling heavy, wary even. “I’m not annoyed at you,” I retorted, eager to diffuse the tension between us before it grew to an ugly size. “I’m just worried about what all of this means. Aren’t you? I mean, we were both thrown off of our own planets, for fuck’s sake, and ended up here. There has to be a greater meaning to it all.”

  “I know, I know, Erin. It’s why I stayed, why I came back to you, so we could figure this out together.”

  Delia looked deep into my eyes, hers searching mine as intently as I was hers; both of us found nothing but compassion for the other, a connection two sisters might have.

  No, we weren’t of the same blood, but what we’d gone through had fused us together.

  “Alrighty, what do we know?” I started as we picked our way around the torn turf of the once quiet valley.

  I looked over the battleground and winced. But likely, the fallen carcasses would be dragged off by something else, and soon enough the lakes waters would run pure and clean again.

  “Not a lot,” Delia said, pulling her hair back from her face. “I’ve been trying to get into their systems, every place we’ve stopped. I’m good at this, but so far, no luck.”

  I squeezed her hand. “You fixed the translators, right? That’s all the reference I need on your skills.”

  She shook her head. “There are consoles, but I can’t get them to power up. They’re useless.”

  “Broken, or just without connection?” I wondered aloud. “I found power still running through some sort of refrigeration unit.”

  She nodded. “It was on the base where we first found each other. Patchy, but workable.”

  “But have you seen anything like a generator? Or wires?”

  She shrugged. “Direct transmission of power is something humans have experimented with for over a century now. If what I suspect about our guys is true, the Masters are much more advanced in a number of different ways.”

  I caught her eye, and she nodded. Well, good to know that we were in agreement on that, at least.

  Our mates, our families. . .nothing else made sense that they’d been genetically engineered for this place.

  “So, that’s something we can put in the knowledge box,” I added. “Superior sciences. And it sounds like people came here, not just the Masters.”

  “Right,” she nodded. “Likely some form of space travel. Even if all of those visitors were from this system, they had to have a way to get here and back off planet.”

  “Which brings us to your own mission.” I nudged her with my hip. “Getting away.”

  “I want to, I really do.” She looked worried. “But if we don’t know what happened here, how will I know if we’re really free?”

  I didn’t have an answer to that.

  We walked in silence for a while. When we arrived at a damaged tree, the trunk shattered by the battle, another topic of conversation pushed its way to the front of my mind.

  “Do you think they intend to return?” I couldn’t help but ask Delia, her eyes examining the point of entry that my fingers tentatively traced along. “That the Masters could come back, force them somehow to take part in the stupid trials again?”

  “You read my mind,” came her somber response. “I don’t know, Erin. I think the guys are done with that life, but it’s whether the Masters’ are done with them that matters.”

  “I don’t think they are. They can’t be,” I reasoned, choosing my words slowly, carefully. “Whatever happened here, we haven’t found any bodies in any of the stations.”

  Delia nodded, and I went on.

  “I don’t think anyone was killed, and so it stands to reason that the Masters had to have left. If it wasn’t by their own choice, there’s no way they’d leave all this,” I threw my arms up and motioned at the scenery before us. “They sound too arrogant and greedy to do that.” I was desperate to be wrong, oh so very desperate, but there was a voice inside of me that reasoned that I wasn’t.

  “Does that mean they’ll come back though, that they have plans?” Delia looked anxious again as she asked this; it was a question I didn’t have any firm answers to.

  I wished that I had, as the idea of being so in the dark after everything we’d each gone through seemed far too cruel even for this bleak world. Unable to offer her nothing save my comfort, I tried to focus on the positives of our situation.

  “We’re here, aren’t we? That means something.” I twisted my head to either side, as if I’d heard something she had not. I hadn’t, but I kept getting the feeling that we were being watched.

  It made no sense though, as I was sure we’d have heard the others calling out to us by now if their intention was to join us, and so the question begged who was watching us, if anyone even was? I trembled, my arms wrapping around me in an attempt to comfort myself.

  “I don’t kn—holy shit! Look!” Delia cried, her shaking finger pointed at the sky.

  A flash of orange had sprayed across the heavens back towards the coast.

  It looked like a flare to me, but if it was, then who had shot it in the first place? Even if it had accidentally been set off—which I was skeptical about—it seemed odd that now was when it had happened.

  The orange ball of the fizzling light mocked me as it starte
d to fade from view.

  My skin crawled as I felt unseen eyes trained on me.

  I was so sure that we were alone here, yet the overwhelming feeling of being watched, of devious eyes glaring down on us, had my muscles tense.

  Bushes and leaves flailed about behind us, signaling that Roth, Talos, and Kern were approaching, followed by Axar and his company. They must have seen the light as well and were keen to check we were safe.

  As I listened to their approach, their pounding footsteps throwing the jungle into chaos as animals darted and squawked to be away from them, I thought back to what Delia and I had just been talking about.

  I rubbed my hand across my mouth, a nervous twitch to my movements.

  “What else does this place have planned for us…?”

  Thank you for reading!

  Tested by the Alien Hybrids will be out September 20!

  We’ll have a new heroine who meets her triad, and solve a bit more of the mystery. Click to pre-order here!

  And keep reading for a teaser!

  To make sure you don’t miss any of the story, please sign up for my new release list here:

  https://lianoxbooks.com/new-release-list/

  Or sign up for my facebook group here:

  https://www.facebook.com/groups/lianoxbooks

  And please don’t forget to leave a review - not just of my book, but of any indie author you read. Reviews make all the difference for us!

  Thank you again for visiting my world :)

  <3 Lia

  @2019 Lia Nox. All rights reserved.

  Tested by the Alien Hybrids: Sneak Peek!

  Chapter 1: Clea

  My eyes flickered open. A thin slit of frosted, misty glass spread out above me, its icy sheen instant evidence that something was amiss.

  I wasn’t in bed. Enclosed in some sort of narrow metal tube, I could barely move enough to look around.

  There was no way out.

  Suffocating fear gripped me as I pounded at the bleak interior pinning me in place. The walls closed in on me, the compact confinement stifling movement.

  Had they closed in an inch? I feared I was crazy, yet they pressed at me with malice as I squirmed upon the thin mat beneath my body.

  It was all too much; my vision was starting to go black. . . .

  Pounding as hard as I could, my fists and bare knuckles sore within seconds, I fought to get free of whatever trapped me, the metallic ringing of its shell alien to me; the last memory I had was of my father glaring down at me, his eyes filled with the anger he’d grown so used to wearing it fitted him like a finely tailored dinner jacket.

  And then I’d woken up here.

  Harder than before, hysteria all too close at hand, I hammered against the panel above me with as much strength as I could muster.

  Raining my fists unrelentingly on the casing, finally a crack appeared, spreading up the length of the metal tube.

  The taste of freedom coated my tongue as I went to stretch up and out of my prison, the thin slit of a window no longer teasing me with views of the outside world, no matter how blurry. But no sooner had I reached for the gap, when an arc of electricity leapt across the fissure.

  “No, no, no no, no,” I whimpered, the reality that I’d only broken down the first barrier of many now sinking in; I was no further now than when I’d started.

  I screamed and cried out, my throat soon tender from the constant strain, but still nobody came to my aid. Wherever I was, I was alone.

  Seemingly out from under my father’s watchful gaze, but also too far removed from anyone else; I’d left the frying pan but had entered into the fire.

  Racked with despair, an increasing heat fired up every inch of my flesh, the warmth of it so intense that it felt like all of me was being set alight.

  I was going to die in here.

  Believing all hope to be lost, I thrashed about, tossing and turning, kicking and punching at anything I could—it didn’t matter if I bled anymore, I was going to die locked inside a metal box that I had no recollection of ever entering.

  Belting out the last of my screams, the air around me starting to feel too thick to breathe, I kicked at a panel by my feet.

  Flashes of blue light exploded everywhere, the fizzle of electricity blending in with the jagged roughness of my screams. I tried to move as far away from the sparks as I could, but there was simply no room for me to mold myself into the curve of the surrounding case.

  Unexpectedly, the tiniest, briefest of hisses whispered in my ears, causing me to automatically open my eyes.

  The blue haze of the electricity was gone.

  The tube was open.

  And I had no idea where I was.

  Pushing the lid further aside, I scrambled to get out, then froze. This couldn’t be good. The tube that had encased me had crashed through a wall, to come to rest at a steep angle. I’d have to jump.

  My mind raced. How far down was it, really? Could I do this? What if I broke my ankle or landed wrong or. . .?

  Stop it, Clea. You don’t have a choice.

  Jump.

  It was far enough that landing, I stumbled and rolled, the stinging from the bottom of my feet shooting up my legs.

  But nothing broken. Nothing sprained.

  I was out.

  Feeling its musky air upon my wet, sticky face meant that I was truly able to get out of my confinement. This time Iwas free.

  I looked around, trying to make sense of the room I found myself in, the way silence clung to every broken tile—none of it resembled anywhere I’d been before.

  Instinctively, my hands flew to my chest to feel for my locket. It was still there. Oh, thank god. Losing it would have finally broke me.

  Although relief flooded my system with euphoria, it was fleeting as the world around me started to form a solid image I could focus on.

  Every object within this room, if you could even refer to this place as a room anymore, was either broken or caked in dust. It was a desolate location to find myself in, the decayed air which had been a relief to me moments ago had already turned its hand and began to choke me as grim realization descended.

  How could I be here, and where the hell was everyone else? I’d been with my father before, yet there was no sign of anyone else having been here in years, maybe even decades—the state of disrepair was so great that it was hard to tell how much time had passed.

  Frantic again but with a renewed sense of worry, I looked about for a means of contacting someone. Even if it wasn’t my father who answered, so long as another person came to my rescue, I’d be grateful.

  There was no telephone, no working computers and no handheld devices, the whole room was barren except for a single thing. It looked like some sort of weapon.

  Curious, I examined it carefully. Not a gun. Maybe a flare gun?

  I knew what it was the moment I gazed upon it because I’d tried to reach a similar one inside my house so many times. Although I’d never managed to get to it in time, my father had always been much too quick.

  Grabbing this one however, I clutched it to me as if it were a newborn baby and I the protective mother, my aim being to get outside as swiftly as possible.

  I could signal. Someone would see. Someone would rescue me.

  The formidable door that had sealed me inside the room hadn’t been as tough to move as I’d anticipated. It had only taken a couple of hard shoves and it had squeaked lose, the shrill pitch of the noise scratching its way down my ear canals. It didn’t matter though, it was open, I was able to move forwards.

  Taking that small victory in stride, I raced down a dingy corridor, the red glow of some kind of emergency light working itself into a frenzy.

  I felt like there should be alarms ringing somewhere, followed by an orderly shouting for me to return to my room, but no such chaos rushed to meet me.

  All that existed was me, the flare gun, the red glowing corridor and the shadowy door at the end of it.

  And that was the entire worl
d.

  As I scurried along, drawing ever nearer to what I hoped was an exit, the entire sequence reminded me of all those nightmares I’d had as a child: my father had been chasing me down, trying to lock me back up again, and whenever I felt I’d escaped from his gnarled, clutching hands, the corridor had elongated. I’d never been able to get away from him, and so I’d wake every morning, frightened and alone, knowing my life as a prisoner was an inevitable one.

  This time however, the passageway wasn’t growing longer but shorter, the gap between myself and the darkened doorway closing with every thump of my footfalls. By the time I reached it, I threw both my arms out ahead of me and pushed against it like a charging football player.

  When I went to breathe in now, fresh air swirled inside my expanding lungs, the way it stung too beautiful a feeling to put into words. There was no sweeter moment in my life than the briny taste of breeze dancing upon the tip of my tongue.

  I never wanted to be encased inside a metal pod again, not so long as I lived, which then reminded me of the flare gun I still had nestled in my hands.

  Maybe flare gun.

  Still, a way to signal. To reach someone.

  Pointing it into the air, its barrel a blunt nose upturned skywards, I pulled back the trigger and watched as a stream of orange burst into the heavens.

  I was mesmerized to see its journey, having envisioned what it would be like to call out from inside the darkness to another soul in all my dreams.

  It was awesome and terrifying to know that all you’d ever dreamed about was of being free, yet it was a reality you knew would never happen.

  “Now it is,” I told myself, the shock of being away from my father—my life—having not registered with me until this very second.

  I was free.

  However, with it came a new set of fears. As I watched the flare dissipate, I noticed how the scenery all around the dimming burnt umber of its glow was nothing like my home.

  Twisting about on the spot, my feet heavy and clumsy, it became all too apparent that home was long gone now.