Alien, Mine

THE BLUTHEN HAVE ONE CONSUMING PASSION: THEMSELVES.
IN THEIR EXPANSION ACROSS THE GALAXY, THEY WILL GO TO ANY LENGTHS TO DOMINATE SPECIES THEY ENCOUNTER.

Torn from modern day Earth and stranded on the far side of the Galaxy, Sandrea Fairbairn must use every particle of courage she possesses to adjust to her new life and live for tomorrow.

Eugen Mhartak, a general in the Tri-Race Alliance Army, refuses to bow to the merciless Bluthen. Haunted by the loss of far too many innocent lives he has vowed to drive the ruthless invaders from Alliance space.

The strength and valor of Eugen Mhartak attracts Sandrea as no man ever has, but she struggles to read the enigmatic general’s heart. Determined to help him triumph over the Bluthen she uncovers a diabolical plot against the Alliance.

Drawn by the courage and exotic beauty of Sandrea, Mhartak battles to overcome the barriers of cross-cultural differences that separate them and claim her ardent interest. He must conquer his deepest fears to be the man she needs. When his principles are betrayed by his own government and he is faced with the impossible prospect of taking Sandrea’s life in order to save his home planet, Mhartak desperately searches for a way to keep safe both his world and the magnificent woman who has stolen his heart.

ALIEN, MINE

SANDRA HARRIS

SOUL MATE PUBLISHING

New York

ALIEN, MINE

Copyright©2013

SANDRA HARRIS

Cover Design by Fiona Jayde

This book is a work of fiction.  The names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.  Any resemblance to actual events, business establishments, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved.  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the priority written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher.  The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

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Published in the United States of America by

Soul Mate Publishing

P.O. Box 24

Macedon, New York, 14502

ISBN-13: 978-1-61935-
243-8

www.SoulMatePublishing.com

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

I would like to dedicate this book

to my wonderful husband,

my inspiration, my beloved distraction.

ILYL

Acknowledgements

There are a number of people I would like to acknowledge who have helped me on this journey. I’ll list them in the chronological order they came to me. Thanks to Tassia, who suggested I write in the first place. Thanks to Wendy whose encouragement helped me finish my first book. Thanks to Helene for urging me to join the fabulous Romance Writers of Australia and for always being there with a supportive word. Thanks to Sue, Glenda, Jodie, AJ and Nerida, the girls of my writing group. And lastly but not leastly, a huge thanks to C.T. Green, friend and best CP in the world, I couldn’t have done it without you.

And thank you to Andrea J. for loaning me her name. :)

Chapter 1

Lost, One Human Female . . .

Thundering noise boomed through the night air and beat the woman’s senses into submission. Screams of terror sliced through sudden, blinding, white light. She doubled in pain as the twin assault to her ears and eyes seemed to compress her brain. By her side, her dog growled, yelped, then was silent.

Rough hands grabbed her and shoved. She stumbled, deaf, blind, and confused. Her hands desperately sought for her pet. Bodies jumbled together, bumped into her as though herded along. Her mind scrambled frantically to make sense of the chaos.

Time and reason fused into a dark nightmare.

Dread hounded her body and soul. A distinctive smell became associated with grey, oval faces appearing in her limited, terrified vision and performing dispassionate examinations. Her muscles bucked against restraints and screams of agony tore from her throat as excruciating pain slashed again and again. At breaking point, her sanity fled deep into a subliminal lair, turned its back, and hunched in quivering denial.

Survival instinct kicked in. Elementary senses alone processed information; the torture of stressed nerve ends, a brutal blow to her back, her knees slamming into the harsh surface of something hard as she fell. Darkness. Silence. Isolation. Hunger.

Unrestrained, she crawled further into deep shadow and huddled around herself. Her mind relegated cries of extreme horror echoing down a long tunnel and puncturing long periods of absolute silence to another dimension. Currents of dank air brushed against her skin. At sporadic intervals the distant view of quivering, unfamiliar body parts flashed into her awareness. The emptiness of her stomach drove her to scavenge for sustenance and she followed the smell of seared flesh. Her guarded sanity inhibited details, tagged the scorched meat simply as food.

The fathomless measure of passing time cocooned her in obliviousness.

Groans filtering into her limited perception of reality pulled her forward. She peered into a patch of light. Horror at the image of grey, emaciated hands with black claws picking delicately through the carnage of dismembered bodies flung her back into the cold, dark corridor of her refuge. Violent, full body tremors ravaged her as her terrified mind struggled to process the scene she’d witnessed. Her higher brain functions took a giant step towards primary consciousness.

What is this place?
Why am I here?

Suppressed memories, like witnesses to un-prosecuted crimes, clamoured for attention. Her brain denied their demand for recall yet they crawled over her spirit like an eight-legged toxin of terror and revulsion.

She slid her gaze to the blur of light. The answers were back there.

Heart pounding in blood-gushing thumps, she forced her trembling limbs to the light and again fled into the gloom of the cut-rock duct to retch viciously. The rank smell of bile drove her further into the tunnel. A few feet away she collapsed against the rough wall. Her breath caught in her throat and she wiped her mouth across the gauntness of her upper arm.

Self-awareness exploded and she faced the fact that what she had seen was real.

Aliens. Sweet Jesus,
aliens
!

It bothered her to no small extent that she accepted their presence without a frenzy of hysterical disbelief. Fear, yes, definitely fear, as her trembling hands testified, but surprise? No.

God, how sane am I?

She forced a dry swallow.

Maybe I’m not.

Anxiously she sought her essential self, but a neglected hollowness filled the space of her identity. Her heart cramped.

I am . . .

No answer came to mind. She pressed hard fingers to her mouth and stifled a sob.

I am . . . Dammit, I
know,
I know who I am.

She squeezed her eyes shut. Bleak agitation slithered through her gut and she rocked back and forth. Desperate to force some semblance of calm onto emotions spiralling into panic, she dragged in a shuddering breath.

I. Am. An . . . And . . . Andy

No, that wasn’t right
.
Her mouth tightened.

I am Andre, Andrea. No!

Frustration growled in her throat. Her tear ducts pricked, but no moisture eased her eyes.

What
has happened to me? Where am I?

Mouth full of the taste of fear and bile, her throat raw, she crawled back to the light and forced herself to watch from concealment. Two tall, sinewy aliens with skin the dark grey of a bottle-nosed dolphin hovered over a captive restrained on a trolley. Red blood defaced the light-amber skin of his chest and abdomen. His body jerked to a vicious incision and a shudder ripped through her at the remembered glint of scalpels.

One surgeon probed the wound with long, flexible fingers and withdrew a thumb-drive sized silver cylinder flashing a blue pulse through the crimson of fresh blood. He held it up to his colleague who nodded, and they withdrew from the room.

She waited a few moments then scrambled down the six or so foot drop to the floor of the carved out room, determinedly keeping her eyes from the gruesome remains littering one table. Swift, silent footsteps took her to the tortured being. She stared at his wounds and gulped. Whatever still occupied her stomach she dearly did not wish to experience again.

She ran her gaze up his body and stared into striking, amber eyes burning with the spark of intelligence. He seemed to study her with mild surprise and curiosity. The fierce beauty of his face snagged her self-preservation instincts; the almond-shaped eyes, the aggressive nose, the hairless, boldly shaped skull all spoke ‘predator’.

She eyed him and the other captives. Should she try and free them?

The enemy of my enemy is not always my friend.

She’d never been inclined to judge a person by their skin, but . . . those
were
scales plating the well-developed musculature of his chest and abdomen. Beautiful, light-gold, but nevertheless scales.

Hell, who was she kidding? They were in as much peril as she and she wasn’t about to leave them to the tender mercies of the grey-skins. God alone knew what would happen to them. Thankfully, her recall provided only snatches of specific memory on that count—agony, helplessness, terror, the knowledge of surgical violations. Besides, she happened to like reptiles.

She studied the control panel for the metallic bands confining him to the table.

Christ, I could stab at symbols all day and not hit the correct sequence.

Grabbing a handful of swabs she packed them into his wounds then did as much for the others.

All the captives appeared to be of the same race. Even prostrate they were pretty damn big. Through their torn and rent clothing she could make out the huge, individual scales armouring their torsos while lightly dappled cream and mocha skin covered the rest of them.

How the hell am I going to free them? And quickly.

Those grey bastards would probably reappear all too soon. She returned to the first victim. His forearms bunched as he tugged at the metal restraints and he speared her a look of . . . expectancy? Hope? She ran her gaze over a nearby bench then wrapped her hands around a solid piece of something and lifted. The weight of it felt . . . therapeutic. She turned back to the trolley, raised the heavy tool above her head and focused her thoughts.

I
—

She locked her eyes on a restraint.

am
—

Every ounce of pent up emotion wringing her soul drove the tool onto the metal shackles confining one of the alien’s wrists.

Sandrea!

A rush of triumph at recalling this small but significant detail accompanied a hollow
thwunk
that echoed around the hushed cavern. Impact tremors vibrated up her arms.

They felt
good
.

She raised the block again and pummelled the restraint. The gazes of the other occupants fixed on her efforts. A kind of mad glee took over and she battered the metal, again and again.

A distant rumble penetrated the craggy rock-walls and she spared a glance at her alien. He did not appear concerned. She hammered another blow. A crack appeared. The promise of victory spurred her on and she rained destruction on the clamp. Triumph shot through her as the binding broke then fell apart.

The alien quickly freed his arm and touched a string of symbols on a keypad. The remaining straps clicked open and he hauled himself to his full, impressive height.

She backed off, reached an arm toward the duct, ready to flee if necessary. He flicked the fingers of one hand over the middle of his chest and she stiffened. Then he moved to release his comrades.

The cavern trembled to a close explosion. Sounds of a fierce skirmish drew near and she narrowed her eyes on the freed alien. He’d gone to a lot of trouble to hide that cylinder—and suffered more to have it taken from him. Such actions indicated a certain importance attached to the thing.

Important enough to secure my way out of here?

There was no guarantee they could get her out of this hellhole, but . . . She headed for the duct. Twenty feet through the cut-rock channel she turned into a horizontal, metal ventilation shaft. The pounding of heavy, booted feet echoed from without in faint warning.

Okay,
if sporadic flashes of memory weren’t leading her up the garden path
, it was this one or . . . yes! This one.

A quick, cautious observation through a grille revealed a large, lab-like empty room. A swift scrutiny disclosed the cylinder in a glass containment chamber on a shelf. The sole of her bare foot protested to the forceful kick she slammed against the grille. She leapt down and dashed toward her objective. The unsecured, dome-shaped lid of the containment chamber lifted smoothly to her pull.

The cylinder safe within her hand, she scrambled back into the metal shaft, scurried down the rock duct and reached the entrance in a rush. Half the weapons in the cavern trained on her with frightening speed. Terror doused her feeling of triumph and she reared back into concealment.

“Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” she screamed and scrambled further into hiding.

Sweet Mother, how many guns were there?

The murmur of deep, fluid voices filtered through the thundering of her heart. Her breath rasped in short, sharp bursts and she crouched on all fours, exhaustion and fright shaking her entire being.

The head and shoulders of the being she had freed appeared at the shaft entrance. He gestured her forward, murmured something that sounded reassuring and again waved her to him. Unsure, she crept forward, her wide-eyed gaze locked on his.

He stepped back and her agitated gaze skated off him to land on the commanding figure by his side.

Her awareness contracted to him.

Holy Mother of God, he’s
huge
.

Her heart kicked against her ribs. Unarmed, he looked more deadly than all the weapon-bearing soldiers surrounding him.

He stretched a big hand toward her, his intense stare trapping her focus. Warm fingers wrapped a gentle hold around her wrist and gave a careful tug. She tumbled out of the shaft, powerful arms caught, then righted her. Her body sagged into his supporting hold and she lifted her gaze to stare into beautiful green eyes. Time slowed and for the length of a cosmic heartbeat something almost familiar spun between them. The strong, gentle protection of his embrace washed a soothing balm over her ragged emotions.

The giant rumbled something to her alien friend and the rustle of shifting troops filtered to her brain. She blinked and offered her prize. For a moment he stared at the capsule, then threw his head back and laughed. Through his battle-ravaged clothing she glimpsed the bronzed plates of his chest and abdominal scales. Reminiscent of the stylised beaten armour of old, the bulges that rounded them out testified to dense muscle.

He accepted her offering, engulfed her hand in one of his, then barked a command at his troops and marched off, dragging her with him.

The spectre of subjugation flashed through her mind.

“Wait!” she cried and attempted to halt.

An exercise in futility; he probably hadn’t even realized she’d tried to stop. His strength, his mastery, the horror of her situation, all combined to flood unreasoning fear through her mind.

“No! Don’t force me!”

He turned to her, uttered something in a dark-chocolate voice and continued to pull her along. She strained against his grip, dug in her heels, and wrenched her entire body sideways.

She remained his prisoner.

Panic turned her struggles frantic. He grabbed her other arm, hauled her close, and lifted his chin toward one of the soldiers. His gaze dropped to hers, and again he said something in a voice so smooth it almost soothed her. Something cold pressed against her neck. She flinched, drew a startled, angry breath, and swayed. Awareness receded. Strong arms lifted and secured her against solid warmth.

Darkness claimed her.

General Eugen Mhartak cradled the fragile alien to his chest and fought a distinct reluctance to release her when he and his company reached their armed transport. The shock of recognizing something deep within her stare, something that felt like a lost part of his soul, still reverberated through him.

He hitched her a little higher in his arms, lowered his nose to the soft, petal-like skin of her neck and inhaled. The floral and spice scent of her female hormones flooded a complicated wash of peace and hot lust through his senses. His thought clouded and he fought to regain reason.

A murmured inquiry from a medic offering assistance helped drag him back to reality. He waved the soldier away and with the sound of his troops readying for departure helping to ground him, he gently secured the enigmatic, alien female into a seat. Her head lolled to one side in sedated relaxation and he leaned close, then caught himself about to inhale her scent again like a hopeless addict. The desire to hold her, protect her, almost overwhelmed him.