by Octavia Kore
“Luck?” Vog’s brow ridge arched. “This is nothing short of punishment.” When their cabin numbers and other information had been transferred to their comms, Vog jerked his head toward the hatch. “Welcome aboard, Ambassador Oshen. Havacker, keep your tail out of trouble.”
“I wouldn’t dream of disappointing you, sir.”
“You’re going to be the one he sends out of the airlock if you don’t watch it,” Oshen murmured as they stepped through.
“Vog loves me. He just doesn’t know how to express it properly.” Brin laughed. “Besides, he needs me.”
“Always so humble,” Oshen said.
“I know my worth, Ambassador, and I’ve worked my tail off to earn those bragging rights.”
Oshen held his hands up in surrender. “I never said you hadn’t.”
They passed the group of younger males Brin had seen earlier, and he caught part of the whispered conversation. Word of the Grutex’s shocking claims had spread like wildfire among the population. The promise of a solution to the issue of their people’s infertility was too good to pass up, but not everyone was willing to search for the cure outside of their species.
“What did the council have to say about everything?” Brin asked.
“I think the majority find the thought of mixing Venium lifeblood with anything alien to be revolting, but they were obviously curious enough to send us to investigate.”
“How do you feel about it?”
Oshen shrugged. “If my mate is among these people, then I wish to find her.”
What if his mate was on the planet the humans inhabited: Earth? He didn’t want a mate, didn’t want the family that he would be expected to create, but certainly the odds that these people would be compatible with them were slim. He had nothing to worry about.
Chapter 1
Jun
Present day...
Work in the emergency room was fast-paced much of the time, but some days her shift seemed to drag, and never more so than the shift after leaving her best friend with an alien. One who she knew nothing about, who sported long claws and sharp teeth. He was an alien who could easily mangle one of the only people in Jun’s life who meant anything to her.
She had seen what claws and teeth like that could do to human flesh, and the memory of it was more than enough to fuel her imagination the entire time she was on shift. A shudder slithered up her spine at the thought of Fishboy doing anything to Amanda.
The fact that Amanda had the gun to protect her should have eased her worry, but Jun was almost certain her friend had already hidden the weapon away the moment she left. Probably sitting in that damn junk drawer in the kitchen. After years of friendship, Jun knew the woman like the back of her hand. She was practically her sister at this point.
A dull ache throbbed up through the soles of her feet and made every step feel like she was trudging through the surf, sinking into the sand as the waves receded.
The constant, familiar buzz of the hospital did little to distract her from her terrible anxiety. Doctors and nurses passed in and out of rooms, phones rang, and alarms from various medical equipment sounded. Today, it all seemed to grate on her nerves more than it ever had before.
Speaking of things that got on her nerves… Mr. Devly. She huffed as she glanced down at the chart. The man was far too handsy with all the female staff, and she had threatened to cut his offending appendages off in her mind more than once. She swore he purposely hurt himself just so he could come in and harass them. Murder is illegal. Murder is illegal. Jun eased the door open, a sweet smile plastered on her face.
“Hello, Mr. Devly. Just here to check vitals and then I’ll be out of your hair.”
“Oh, no need to be so quick. You look like a little slice of heaven in all of this hell raging out there.” A lecherous grin spread across his face. Jun managed to evade his attempt to grope her scrub-covered ass as she jotted down his stats. Murder. Is. Illegal. Vitals down, Jun started to back away only to feel a clammy hand grasp her wrist. “Why don’t you stay and keep an old man company?”
Her lips thinned, pulling back over her teeth as she snarled at his audacity. “Contrary to what you might believe, I have an actual job to do here and it doesn’t include sitting in here so you can get your jollies off.”
The blaring alarm from somewhere down the hall saved her from beating him over the head with her clipboard and losing her job. She yanked her hand away and quickly left the room.
“Code G,” a voice called over the handheld radio that sat at the nurses’ station. “Code G. Multiple lacerations. Heavy blood loss.”
Another attack. They were seeing more and more of these as the Grutex became bolder, showing up more often and maiming or killing those who dared to fight back. The first of the victims through the door was an older man. What was left of his clothing was shredded and drenched in the blood that continued to pour from his wounds. There was nothing left of his lower legs, Jun noticed, except for the torn tissue that still clung to the splintered bones protruding from the mangled muscle.
She said a quick prayer and rushed forward, mentally storing all of the information the EMT rattled off. Three more victims strapped to stretchers were wheeled in and soon the entire floor was thrown into chaos. Doctors barked orders as nurses rushed to meet their needs. Jun felt a cold hand slip into hers, and she looked down to see the patient she was working with watching her with wide eyes.
“They’ll take us all.” He breathed heavily into the oxygen mask that had been placed over his mouth and nose. “They want us. They want––” Alarms began to sound around her and Jun jumped into action when he started to convulse on the bed.
“Shit!” Kate swore as she ran into the room to assist.
The shrill ring of the heart monitor going flat sent an eerie chill through her body, and she stepped back as one of the other nurses, Javi, jumped in to start CPR. When the man’s time of death was called, Jun felt her shoulders sag.
“Can’t save them all,” the on-call doctor mumbled.
By the time her shift was over, she felt dead on her feet. The short nap she had taken toward the end of her shift hadn’t done much to refresh her. Every muscle and joint screamed in protest as she shuffled out of the parking garage elevator toward her little car.
It wasn’t anything fancy, but she took great pride in the fact that she had worked hard enough to be able to afford the pre-owned vehicle all on her own. She had grown up in a small rural town in the Philippines, the oldest child of hardworking middle-class parents who put everything they had into her education. They had made sure she had all the tools needed to carve out a profitable life.
Family was a huge part of her upbringing. Not only did Jun have younger biological siblings, she also had cousins who her parents had taken into their home and raised as their own. Being alone had never been an option until she had gone away to nursing school in one of the nearby major cities.
The freedom had been unnerving in the beginning, but she found her groove, excelling in her field of study. Not long after graduation, she had been offered the opportunity to move to America on a work visa. She left her family, her home, everything familiar to her for the chance to make a better life.
The land of milk and honey hadn’t been what she envisioned. The hospital she worked for was in the center of a large city, which meant the rent was astronomical, the streets were congested, and the basic human necessities were overpriced or out of stock.
It hadn’t taken long for the homesickness to settle in. There was no hopping on a cheap flight back home to visit family for the weekend. No homecooked meals delivered by Mama or Lola to ease her heart when she couldn’t get away from clinicals. No surprise visits from her papa to raise her spirits when the strain of putting aside her emotions wore on her.
Thank the lord for the invention of video chat. It was one of the only things that had preserved her sanity. Meeting Amanda in the emergency room after her unfortunate accident with a horseshoe crab had
given her something she hadn’t imagined she needed: another little sister. There had been something about that first meeting that had drawn her.
They became fast friends, meeting up for coffee, trading recipes, and hanging out on each other’s porches for hours. Teaching Amanda how to make all of the foods she had grown up eating was still something they did all these years later. Amanda had been so interested in hearing about her culture. Having someone who was so curious about her family and traditions had been wonderful and gave her a chance to really appreciate those things for herself.
She reached into her bag and pulled out her little pillbox, dumping the medications into her palm before tossing them back with a grimace. Labetalol, amlodipine, and losartan: three of the things that kept her body working like it should. Managing her high blood pressure had become the key to controlling her rheumatic heart and kidney disease. That she was already at stage four and only had one kidney didn’t do anything to help the situation.
During her last checkup a few months ago, the doctors had made it very clear that if she didn’t stick with the medications and change her diet, she wasn’t going to be around for as long as she had planned to be.
Jun was slowly cutting out most of the salt and caffeine from her life, but damn if it wasn’t hard. She had switched from three cups of coffee per day to one, and it was killing her.
Literally, she mused.
Amanda knew about her struggles with high blood pressure but didn’t know the extent of her illness yet, and if Jun had her way, she wouldn’t tell her until she got everything under control.
As much as she wanted to go home and crawl into bed, Jun needed to reassure herself that Amanda was all right and that the hulking gray Venium warrior she’d reluctantly left her with hadn’t broken out of his bonds. She snorted as she pulled out into traffic.
If she knew her friend, and she most definitely did, then the alien had already been set free and she was probably feeding him everything in her pantry. There was no time to caffeinate, but she knew her friend would have everything she needed.
Jun pulled into Amanda’s driveway, shifted into park, and then rested her head against the back of the seat. The next few days were all hers, and she had never been more grateful for surprise days off. She noticed two shadowy figures through the windows, and rolled her eyes as she shut off the ignition.
She let him out.
As quietly as she could manage, Jun shut the door and tiptoed up to the house, eyes and ears alert to any sound of distress.
Muffled conversation reached her as she approached the door. She paused for a moment to listen, but couldn’t make anything out. Using the spare key Amanda had given her, Jun unlocked the door, praying that the squeaky hinges wouldn’t give her away. There was no one in the entryway, but the shadows had been off to her left, in the dining area.
When she closed the door behind her, Jun turned to see Hades, Amanda’s massive black and silver Maine Coon cat staring at her with wide eyes. Jun wiggled her finger at him in greeting, but that only seemed to startle him more and he bolted down the hall, retreating toward Amanda’s bedroom. Take a cat back into the exam room to get neutered one time and they hold it against you for the rest of their lives.
“You’re so dramatic.” Amanda laughed from the other room.
“I am not. You just served me wet, soupy sand.”
“Those are grits, not sand, and you’re absolutely dramatic.”
Jun rolled her eyes and tried to smother the grin that tugged at her lips as she listened to them banter.
“Grit: small particles of stone or sand,” the AI spoke up.
“See!” Oshen exclaimed. “I am thankful for your hospitality, but I will pass on the bowl of sand.”
As Jun stepped through the doorway, Amanda snorted, pulling the bowl to herself before taking a heaping bite. “Mmm, you’re missing out.”
“Did you leave any for me?”
Amanda flinched, the spoon dropping from her hand and splattering the contents of the bowl onto her chest. Oshen threw his head back, his laugh filling the room as Amanda glared at him from across the table. “On the stove,” her friend grumbled, wiping her shirt clean.
“Coffee?” Jun asked.
“In the pot. You’re lucky I love you.”
She could feel her muscles ease with her first whiff of the strong brew. Jun may not have lived with Amanda, but she was here often enough that many of her favorite food and beverage items had found a permanent place on her friend’s shelves. The powdered Filipino brew she was so fond of had already been mixed, and she could have wept with joy knowing she was seconds away from caffeinated bliss.
Steam rose up into the air as she poured herself a cup and turned to face the couple at the table. She took a tentative sip and winced as the coffee scorched her tongue.
“Balikas!” Jun cursed, blowing a stream of air across the surface of the liquid. She downed the first cup and went for seconds, knowing she really shouldn’t break the rules her doctor had insisted she follow, but Jun was in for a long day with these two.
One extra cup today won’t hurt.
She hadn’t really expected to like the alien at all, but even now, only a few nights after their first encounter, she admitted to herself reluctantly that he didn’t seem bad. Still, she wasn’t thrilled with the idea of leaving Amanda alone with him when she eventually went back to work.
Her supervisor had been understanding when she called to explain she couldn’t cover for Javi, but she had a shift tomorrow and she wasn’t going to be able to play hooky. Sorry, my best friend rescued an alien and he’s living with her and I don’t want to leave them alone together just didn’t seem like something she could use as an excuse.
Jun stared down into the cup of coffee in front of her, mulling over the things Amanda had told her. The thought that her friend might be mated to Oshen was something she was still trying to wrap her brain around. It sounded like the plot of one of those smutty romance novels, but Amanda was convinced Fishboy was telling the truth.
What if he was? What if the universe had decided long ago that this was meant to be? Would she lose her best friend? Would Oshen expect Amanda to leave Earth and live on his planet, Venora? And then there was the whole imaginary Grutex-looking friend who she also cared about, but didn’t know if he was real… There was so much to process.
“So, what? You feel the same way about both of these aliens? Are they both made for you?” How did any of this even work? Oshen hadn’t mentioned anything about this other male, and for all they knew, he didn’t even exist outside of Amanda’s mind.
“I don’t know.”
She turned to the window with a sigh, trying not to let her disbelief show. If Amanda knew she thought all of this love at first sight and mating an alien stuff sounded insane, she would shut down. A bright blue light cut past one of the windows, catching her eyes as it dipped below the edge.
“What the hell?”
She jumped from her chair and pried the blinds open. Her eyes darted around the small section of Amanda’s yard that was visible from her spot, but there was nothing there.
“What?”
“You didn’t see that light?” she asked, twisting her head so that she could better see the bushes beneath the window. Where the hell had it gone?
“A light?”
“It was so blue,” she muttered mostly to herself as she rushed to one of the other windows. “I swear it looked just like…” She trailed off as the realization hit her. It had looked so similar to the glowing lights on Oshen’s body, but it was the most beautiful blue she had ever seen. “Must have been headlights,” she said, but she knew it wasn’t the truth.
Someone was out there. As she sat back down in the chair, Jun couldn’t shake the nagging pull toward the window. Something inside of her needed to go out there and find the source of the light.
“Look, I don’t care if you want to believe that one alien or both are meant for you. I just want you to be safe,
okay? We don’t know much about the Grutex, and if this guy, assuming he isn’t just inside your head, has been talking to you for so long, they might have abilities we never thought were possible.”
They knew there was at least one other Venium on Earth, but Oshen hadn’t been in contact with Brin since the night Jun had stitched him up. No matter how many times he tried, nothing seemed to get through.
What if the blue light had something to do with this brutok Fishboy spoke of so much? If it was him, would he try to make Oshen return to their ship? If Oshen left, what would happen to Amanda? Jun wasn’t ready to lose her just yet. She needed to get out there and investigate.
“I need to run home and grab some clothes if I’m going to stay longer.” It wasn’t just an excuse; she’d been wearing these clothes longer than she cared to think about. While she stored food items here, she didn’t have any clothes stashed in Amanda’s drawers.
“Right now?”
“I’ve been wearing the same clothes for the last couple of days while I stayed with you guys. I’ll just grab the essentials and be back in a little while.” I hope.
“You’re leaving?” Oshen asked as he walked in.
“You wish, Fishboy.” Jun rolled her eyes as she moved into the kitchen. She almost smiled when she pulled open the junk drawer to find her gun sitting on top of rubber bands, spare buttons, and takeout menus. Called it. She flipped the safety on as she walked back to the dining area. “Keep this on you.”
“How did you know it was in there?” Amanda frowned as Jun laid the gun down on the table in front of her. “And don’t you need protection?”
“You hide everything in the junk drawer, and don’t worry about me.” She winked, tapping her hip where her 9mm was safely tucked inside its holster. As she walked by Oshen, Jun jabbed her finger into his chest as hard as she could. “Keep your hands and tail to yourself. Got it?”
A slow smile crept across Oshen’s face as he looked down at Amanda. “I will do my very best.” She didn’t believe him for a moment, and from the way Amanda was blushing, she was pretty positive she’d be getting all the juicy details soon enough.
