by Tammy Walsh
“Radio silence!” he hissed. “Do you know what that means, private?”
“Y-Yes, sir!” the young officer said.
The older officer glared at him before turning, still fuming, and marched toward me.
I shut my eyes, held my breath, and turned my head to one side, like a child attempting to hide from a parent during a game of peek-a-boo.
The inferior officer followed his superior, fading in and out of existence as he marched through one pool of light after another.
I wasted no time.
I hustled toward the doorway they’d come from and stepped through it.
I had no idea which way I was going, but away from here seemed the best option.
I walked for five minutes, which is a long way when you’re going as fast as you can and you’re inside a ship. I came across a map bolted to the wall and immediately ran my finger over it.
I began in the cargo hold where I’d just come from and followed the hall away from it. There was more than one but I had no idea which one I’d taken. Right now, it didn’t matter.
If I kept going, I would find a set of stairs that would take me up to the passenger deck.
The pod deck.
My heart beat faster.
I couldn’t believe I’d almost found her!
I checked the pod sections.
JJ. Where was JJ?
I located it and my heart skipped a beat. She was there somewhere tucked underneath the tip of my finger.
Hang on! I’m coming for you!
Bang!
Something clanged down the tunnel. Something big and heavy and metallic struck the aisle. I could only nail it down to two directions. One I needed to head in, the other not so much. I decided to take a risk and bolted in the direction I knew I needed to go.
Time was running out. I had to take some risks.
I sprinted down the tunnel and found the stairs I’d seen on the map. I took them two, three, four at a time and used my momentum to swing me around the corners and up the next flight.
I counted the flights as I went, and skidded to a halt when I came to the top of the fourth set.
Printed on the door in chipped blue paint were two of my new favorite letters in the galaxy:
JJ.
I threw the door open and stepped onto the pod deck. It was just as grimy as I remembered it. Occupied pods ran in infinite rows. There was little cover up here. I could hide among the pods but I could be spotted with ease.
JJ13-6492
That was what I was looking for.
But I was in the JJ12 section and it seemed to run on and on down this row. I skipped over to the adjacent row.
A spray-painted sign identified it as JJ14.
My feet quickened as I rushed to the row on the other side.
JJ13.
This was it.
I checked the numbers stenciled on the front of each pod.
6356
It ran in even numbers down one side and odd numbers down the other. I picked the right direction and walked… then jogged… then sprinted…
JJ13-6486…
JJ13-6488…
JJ13-6490…
JJ13-6492…
JJ13-6494…
JJ13-6496…
Woah. I went too far.
I backed up two pods.
And there it was.
JJ13-6492
I found her.
I couldn’t see her through the condensation on the pod.
“Hey! Hey you!”
Shit!
A pair of security officers raced down the grating toward me, their boots thumping loudly.
But I didn’t run.
They were angry. I had made fools of them. They weren’t going to take it easy on me.
I pulled my foot back and slammed my heel on the security panel on the side of the pod. Once, twice, three times.
It sure was tough!
I kept hammering at it.
Security was almost on me. It was going to hurt when they knocked me to the floor.
But it wouldn’t kill me.
Bianca was worth the pain.
I struck it again and again and again…
The damn thing wouldn’t break!
The first officer struck me from the side, tackling me to the grating. It stung—just as I knew it would—and sent a shockwave of pain from my elbow and up my arm.
“Get to your feet!” the officer said, hauling me up.
The second officer checked the pod for the damage I’d done to it.
“Do you want to explain this?” he said. “Why were you trying to break into this pod?”
“I have a ticket,” I said feebly. “I… needed to say something to her.”
The officer wiped a hand over the condensation to get a good look inside the pod.
I leaned over to see her but the first officer restrained me.
“Well, you’re not going to get to say it to her,” the officer said. “There’s no one inside it.”
His words didn’t register. They didn’t make any sense.
He had to be wrong. He just had to be.
“No,” I said. “She’s heading to Earth. She’s my godson’s governess.”
The security panel on the pod sparked and hissed, then the lid shifted and folded to one side. The condensation ran off it and dripped on the floor.
He was right. It was empty.
I didn’t understand. I checked the check-in details. She had downgraded. She had checked in.
“You’re going to have to pay for the pod,” the officer said. “Among many other things.”
I didn’t hear him. I just stared at the pod.
Empty?
Had I gotten the wrong one?
No. The number was printed clearly on the front.
Then maybe she switched to another pod?
Why? This was the one she’d been assigned.
“All right,” the security officer said. “Let’s get him out of here.”
I put up no resistance.
I was hustled into a jail cell while the police took their sweet time calling my lawyer. The moment he arrived, the police altered their behavior. The lawyer probably threw my name and title around. Still, that alone wouldn’t set me free.
I was fortunate that some of those who had invested in my business had also invested in the Arcturon Prime airport. They managed to put enough pressure on the companies to convince them to let me off with a temporary ban and payment for the pod I broke.
I got off very light.
As for Zauet Transportation, I improved the terms of their contract with an extra few percent pay increase. The president was very happy with that.
I signed a check for the agreed amount for the pod and was let out. My lawyer escorted me outside.
“Do you need a lift?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “It’ll give me some time to think.”
A figure stood at a park bench.
My eye was drawn to her immediately.
The simple dress did nothing to detract from her beauty. The simple necklace caught her eyes and made them sparkle like newly-discovered diamonds.
Bianca.
She clutched her S’mauggai bag in her hands and just looked at me.
“On second thought, I think I’ll take a cab,” I said.
“A cab?” the lawyer said. “I know I’m not the best driver in the world but surely I beat a cab?”
Then he noticed the figure I was staring at.
“Oh,” he said. “I… guess I’ll catch you some other time. Hopefully not too soon, though. You don’t get many Get Out Of Jail free cards with this kind of thing.”
I waited for him to leave before I spoke.
“I thought you hated that bag?” I said.
She tucked it under her arm.
“It grows on you,” she said.
“One thing’s for sure,” I said. “The skin won’t be growing on the creature it was taken from.”
My joke fel
l flat. Even I didn’t laugh.
“I heard what you did,” Bianca said. “It was… nuts.”
“Yeah. I wouldn’t suggest it. You know, I was beginning to think you might be a figment of my imagination. I had a hell of a time trying to convince them you were real.”
“Sorry,” she said. “I changed my mind about leaving.”
“So, you didn’t bother getting onboard the ship?” I said. “Even after you checked in?”
“I couldn’t do it,” she said. “I went and had a cup of tea and thought about everything I’d been through. The best bits and the worst. And I realized I didn’t want it to end. I didn’t want to go back to Earth. Not yet, anyway.”
“What was your plan?”
“Get another job as a governess, maybe come by and see Cleb now and then.”
Her eyes flicked up to mine.
“And you,” she said. “If you’d like.”
“I wouldn’t like it,” I said.
Her expression fell.
“Oh,” she said. “I thought after your crazy act of—”
“I would love it,” I completed.
I floated toward her on what might have been clouds. I took her face in my hands and looked deep in her eyes. She was desperate, as emotional as I was. I wrapped my arms around her and breathed her in.
“I’m so glad you didn’t get on the ship,” I said. “I would have preferred to have known you didn’t get on the ship, of course, but still, it was worth it. It was worth it just to see you again.
“The truth is, I love the person I am with you. I love the kind of man you make me want to be. Before you came, I was a workaholic and I didn’t even appreciate the one person in my life who loved me the most. Cleb. You made me see what a fool I’d been.
“You did that. You opened my eyes to these things because you see the world differently to the way I did. You give me a reason to be on this Godforsaken rock out in the middle of nowhere.”
I shook my head.
“I’m no good at these kinds of things,” I said.
“Keep going,” she said.
Her eyes pierced me to my soul, and I knew without a doubt I would never be apart from her again.
“What I’m trying to say, in a roundabout way is…” I said. “You complete me.”
Tears leaked from her eyes and peeled down her cheeks. Even crying she looked beautiful.
“I love you more than life itself,” I said. “I only love my life because you’re in it. And I’m sorry I reacted the way I did. I was wrong.”
She thumbed the tears out of her eyes.
“No, you were right,” she said. “It’s your job to worry about Cleb. That’s your responsibility. That’s why your sister left him to you.”
“I was wrong to think he was better off without you. It wasn’t your fault what the kidnapper did. You did what you thought was right at the time. In future, just let me know. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to help you. You know that.”
She smiled.
“Yeah,” she said.
I took her hand and weaved my fingers through hers. She squeezed my hand back. I leaned forward to kiss her.
She pulled back.
“Not yet,” she said. “I need a little time.”
“Oh,” I said, a little disappointed. “All right.”
Bianca’s eyes sparkled.
“That’s it?” she said. “You’re not going to hijack a spaceship for me? You’re going to give up so easily?”
I grinned at her and pressed my lips to hers. I put all my love into it. It was passionate but without too much tongue.
“You know, there’s a hotel just across the road…” she said. “And you just got out of jail. I imagine you’ve got a lot of pent up aggression you need to get out of your system. I wouldn’t want to frighten Cleb or the servants with our shenanigans.”
“You’d better prepare yourself,” I said. “I’m feeling very hungry.”
She hooked her arm through mine and together we crossed the road and booked into the best room they had at the hotel.
Bianca might be Cleb’s governess, but tonight, I would be hers. There was a lot I wished to teach her.
I would push her to her absolute limit.
Every day of our lives.
Wondering what happened to the other girls? In the next book in the series, Vicky is sold cheap to a hot bad boy Titan with a serious chip on his shoulder. He makes her a deal: Pretend they’re in love so he can keep his inheritance and he’ll send her home. But there’s more to him than meets the eye. Can she keep her hands to herself? Can she treat this like the business relationship it is? Or will she get too close and replace that chip with a feral kiss? CONQUERED BY THE ALIEN is available now.
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Conquered by the Alien Sneak Peek
Prologue—Vicky
His lips begged to be kissed.
They sat there, teed up and ready to be attacked by my own yearning hunger.
Spots of water sat on them, dewy from the rain that drenched our clothes and splattered our hair and ran down our faces.
I barely even noticed it.
I didn’t think he did either.
We stood in a pool of warm yellow light that stretched across the grass like a heavenly spotlight.
I was falling desperately in love with this man.
Except, of course, he wasn’t a man at all.
He was a Titan.
He was big and broad across the chest. His soaked clothes clung to his muscles underneath. A smile danced on those impossibly mesmerizing lips.
Did he know he had me right where he wanted me?
Right where I wanted to be?
I was his.
If he wanted me.
Did he want me?
This wasn’t supposed to happen. We had a deal.
We were meant to pretend to be in love, pretend we would get married.
But somewhere along the line, I lost track of that goal.
Now I was floating, heading for a distant but powerful light on the horizon.
It was love.
Then he took me by the hand.
He had a misty look in his eye as he led me inside the shuttlecraft.
And I knew what was on the cards.
I wanted it to be on the cards.
We had a deal.
We were supposed to be arranging a fake marriage.
Fake love.
But there was nothing fake about the emotions tumbling around in my stomach.
Or the knowledge that it couldn’t last.
Dyrel
What a night!
Loud music.
Flashing lights.
Writhing half-clad bodies.
Alcohol.
Fights.
And that was only at the first party! It got a lot wilder after that.
The first party was at a regular club in the heart of the city. As a regular guest, I was ushered into the VIP section. Ettana got
bored and suggested an underground rave on the other side of town in a disused temple.
The police tended not to enforce the law so strictly over there. We were out in the middle of nowhere and no one could be affected by the music, so what harm were we doing?
Enough to call the police, apparently.
Once the rave was shut down, we moved the party over into my apartment. I don’t know what time I went to sleep but I remember having drunken sex with Ettana… Vaguely.
The perfect end to a perfect evening.
Even better, this morning I had nothing to do but recover and prepare for another wild outing tonight.
Nothing to do…
I sensed there was something I was meant to do…
But what?
Something important, I seemed to recall. Something I shouldn’t have forgotten…
It wasn’t there.
It couldn’t have been that important if I couldn’t remember it, could it?
I smacked my lips. My throat was dry and sore. From all the shouting? The singing? The drinking?
The kissing?
My head felt like it’d been stuffed with cotton wool pompoms and a headache thumped at my temples.
My eyes opened like rusty garage doors. Did someone pour sand in them while I was asleep?
I peered at Vicky lying in the bed beside me. The bare skin of her leg showed and her big breasts lay pressed against my arm.
I sighed with satisfaction. Life didn’t get better than this.
The girl’s name was Ettana. She was my partying partner. We slept together sometimes. I slept with other partners too. Just as she no doubt did. It was nice to enjoy a different flavor from time to time.
I never strung anyone along. I always made it clear what the relationship was and what it wasn’t. They were always happy to go along with it. They enjoyed it as much as I did. Once they decided they wanted something else, something “more,” as they termed it, we ended the relationship as friends and went our separate ways.
No harm, no foul.
