Warrior Invasion: A Science Fiction Alien Mail Order Bride Romance (TerraMates Book 10) (15 page)

K
atie stared
at the man on top of her. She had been looking for the perfect man and planning her wedding her entire life. The relationship she had with Ben had worked at the time, but she saw everything from a different point of view now. Katie had spent her time on Earth as a young and foolish girl who knew nothing of the universe.

As Troxeo thrust into Katie, she knew her life had changed. Troxeo was showing her there was more to sex than lust. She felt her heart surge toward him and imagined he felt the same way toward her. Their bodies melded together. It didn’t matter which planet they came from or what happened between them before this moment.

Katie surrendered herself to life with Troxeo, whatever it brought. She couldn’t imagine living any other way. His presence was intoxicating, making her quiver and convulse around him. She wanted him to stay inside her, to fill her up and make her whole.

She shuddered with pleasure, moaning and pressing up against him. Her core rippled around his cock, pulling him further inside. They built up to their climax together, the intensity increasing as they rocked back and forth, exclamations of pleasure growing louder as they became one. Katie screamed, unable to hold anything back anymore. She felt his cock expand inside her, reacting to her pleasure and filling her with his seed.

H
e collapsed next to her
, sweaty and exhausted. She allowed herself a smile of pride that she had been able to bring such a big man to his knees with pleasure. “That was lovely.”

Troxeo was too busy trying to catch his breath to respond. He lay on the pillow next to her, gasping and running his hands over his face. He blinked and stared up at the ceiling as though he wasn’t sure what had happened, but he nodded dumbly.

“So did you like fucking a human?” She felt confident of her sexual prowess on Earth, but she didn’t know what the standards were for the alien. Making love to Troxeo was not the same as it had been with anyone else before. Fucking wasn’t even the right word for it. It wasn’t anything like what she used to do with Ben. She felt raw passion now. Unleashed, unhinged, and uninhibited.

“Liked it?” Troxeo let out a breathless laugh, a noise that Katie had never heard from him before. “If I had known it could have been like that, I never would have taken you to the Fortress in the first place!”

Now it was Katie’s turn to laugh. “That’s good to hear. I guess you’ll be ready for some more later.”

Troxeo rolled over, pinning Katie to the bed with his chest. “I intend to get as much of you as I can before the time comes.” He trailed off, his countenance becoming somber. “We only have a few hours remaining before I return you to Earth.”

Katie felt like crying out in protest. Although it was true that she had been trying to get back to Earth ever since Troxeo had taken her prisoner, things had changed now. Various schemes flashed through her mind, focused on how she could stay together with Troxeo. Returning to Oretoz was out of the question. They might shoot her on sight when she was recognized as an escaped prisoner. Troxeo was likely a wanted man as well.

She couldn’t bring him back to Earth and pretend to live a normal life there either. Though the people on her home planet were aware aliens existed in the universe, it would be unusual for an entirely new race to show up without any fanfare. Katie had likely averted an Oretoz invasion by escaping from Commander Reck. That might change if EarthGov tried to make contact.

Tears welled in Katie’s eyes. After a lifetime of waiting, she had found her true love, and he was about to be ripped away from her. “I don’t want to leave you, Troxeo. I don’t care if I don’t make it back to Earth. I need you. I don’t know how to make it happen. Can we float around in space forever? Please don’t force me to go.”

He kissed her on her forehead, a gesture so tender that it only made her tears spill down her face. “I love you, Katie.” His voice spoke straight to her heart, cradling it and stabbing it simultaneously.

R
olling back
to his side of the bed, Troxeo racked his brain. He knew it would be impossible for them to stay on either of their planets. It would be terrible luck to find a woman he was destined to be with but then have to give her up. Katie was right. They couldn’t travel forever without any plans for resupplying.

“I wish there were a place we could go where none of our complications mattered,” she whispered. “Some place where neither one of us would be hunted, scrutinized, or dissected. Maybe a place where there aren’t any other people at all.”

Troxeo listened to her words, imagining a place that would provide a peaceful rest from all they had been through. Suddenly a thought occurred to him that made him want to smack himself for not having realized it sooner. “I think there’s a planet that has everything you want.”

“Really? Where is it?” She sat up on her elbow to look at him. Her breasts rubbed against his arm, but he forced himself to concentrate on the matter at hand.

“Several years ago, when they promoted me to Captain, the military gave me a bonus. As a soldier bunked in the Fortress, I didn’t need any extra money. I could have used it for upgrades to my ship or saved it for my retirement if I was fortunate enough to live that long. Instead, I combined it with some other savings and bought a parcel of land on a distant planet. Mezval is a resort world for wealthy people who want to be left alone. I only visited it long enough to approve the purchase, but I remember it is beautiful. The land I bought is near an ocean, and it’s big enough that we would never see our neighbors or know they existed. Better yet, they won’t know we exist, either. There’s a nebula near the planet that turns the sky purple and green in the early mornings.”

“Do you think we could live there safely?” she asked hopefully.

“Definitely. Mezval is practically uninhabited compared to Earth or Oretoz. Commander Reck will never think to look for us there. He has no idea that I bought the land. Nobody does, as a matter of fact. I was too embarrassed to tell anyone.”

A smile played at the corners of her lips. The expression was a direct contrast to the tears that still clung like crystals to her eyelashes. “Why?”

He smiled back at her, his humiliation seeming childish. “It’s not the kind of activity befitting a soldier. Especially one with rank.” Troxeo remembered what made Mezval such an exclusive destination, “This planet is in the cluster of stars you call the Milky Way. It’s too far to concern anyone on your planet, but it means we can swing close enough to Earth on the way there to transmit a message to your family. You can let them know you’re safe.”

“Oh, Troxeo! You must be the sweetest, most thoughtful man in the whole universe! No wonder I had to leave Earth to find you!” She threw her arms around him and smothered his face with kisses.

“I’m warning you, we’ll have to find a way to kill time until we get there,” he said with a suggestive glance.

“Well, I’m sure we’ll come up with something. I already have a few ideas.”

“Like what?” He nuzzled her neck, nipping at her tender skin.

“I’m nowhere near being done with you yet. The lather in that shower, for instance, would look fantastic on you.” She reached a hand down toward his inner thigh, where he had already begun to harden again.

“Yeah?” He broke away from her neck and moved down to her breasts, pushing them up around his face.

“Oh, yeah. And we’ve only tried one position so far.” She leaned her head back in delight as the stubble on his chin raked against her.

“How many are there?” he asked, his voice muffled by her voluptuousness.

Katie pulled herself out from underneath him and shoved him down, moving on top of him. She straddled Troxeo and impaled herself on his cock. She glided back and forth, tilting her hips and making him touch her in the perfect spot. “Enough.”

Troxeo’s hands couldn’t decide if they wanted to grab at her breasts or fondle her slit as she moved on top of him. Katie was a paradise he had never known could exist. “I can handle multiple positions.”

Katie closed her eyes and tipped her head back. She solved the debate of his hands when she licked a finger and rubbed it against herself in slow, methodical circles. “There are many more of them that I can’t wait to show you. And one more thing...”

“Yes?” He could feel her tightening around him, and he bucked against her. Her breasts jiggled as she rode him, and he didn’t think they would ever make it out of bed.

Katie opened her eyes. “I love you, Troxeo.”

C
hapter
1

Bella stood in the shaded isolation of the chicken coop, crying. She was supposed to be collecting eggs in her apron, but her apron lay against her still relatively flat stomach as she hid her face in her hands and let the tears flow.

The chicken coop was one of the only places she could get any privacy, since shutting herself up in her bedroom and never coming out would only attract the attentions of her mother, Enid, and her sister, Ivy. They meant well, her family, but she needed a break from the pity in their eyes.

Thankfully she saw no shame there, but pity was bad enough. And she felt enough shame for all of them.

She knew in her brain that the rape wasn't her fault, but sometimes, in moments like right now, she wondered if there hadn't been something she could have done differently. If she hadn't been so friendly, maybe he wouldn't have taken her outgoing personality for interest.

Maybe if she was harder, tougher, like her other sister Keelyn, maybe he wouldn't have followed her. Maybe he wouldn't have taunted her, calling her a tease as he pushed her into the abandoned barn between town and home, tripping her and pinning her down on the dirt floor.

Maybe she wouldn't be carrying this child and throwing up at odd hours, if she'd only chosen a different time of day to run her errands.

Maybe he wouldn't have been found hours later, hanging from a light post in the center of town.

Although that part I can live with
, she thought.

Jovial voices suddenly reached her ears, startling her and making her jump. She wiped her face, erasing the evidence of the tears as she listened hard, trying to place the voices rudely breaking into her quiet moments this early in the morning.

She didn't recognize the voices, but she could tell they belonged to men.

Shit.

Strange men were the last thing she needed right now.

But wait, I know that other voice with them. That's Keelyn!

Then her youngest sister, Ivy, called out in her direction, "Hey Bella, we're gonna need more eggs!"

Bella wiped her eyes once more, and tried to smooth her pitch black hair before leaning out the doorway of the chicken coop and grinning like a fool at her eldest sister, who'd finally come back home.

Keelyn was a were-hunter. She had been providing for the family by killing werewolves, collecting their bounties and selling their hides to pay the rent since the day their father had been killed doing the same thing.

Even the thought of were-wolves sent a shiver down Bella's spine.

Vile, nasty creatures,
she thought.
I don't know how Keelyn does it, but I'm glad she does. The fewer were-kind around these parts, the better.

She was glad to see that her sister had safely returned, but she was also confused.

Keelyn had never brought strangers home with her before.

Bella eyed the rag-tag group with Keeyln, trying to figure out why she brought them here this time.

Her eyes were drawn first to the very pregnant woman with her sister, but she wasn't really ready to acknowledge someone who shared her condition, only a lot further along.

She pulled her eyes from the large, swollen belly to take in the others with Keelyn, and decided she'd rather deal with the woman. Yes, she was pregnant too, but at least she wasn't a man.

The other three with Keelyn and the pregnant woman were all men, and Bella found herself wondering which of them had forced himself on that poor woman, causing her belly to fill and round.

She mentally shook herself, knowing it was her own circumstances warping how she was seeing the strangers, but unable to change her thinking.

She plastered a smile she didn't really feel onto her face and tried to act normal.

Keelyn didn't know about what happened yet, and Bella was hoping that as long as the strangers were here, she wouldn't. At least Keelyn wouldn't look at her with pity. Maybe for a little while she could pretend everything was normal.

"Welcome Keelyn, and Keelyn's friends! Everyone likes eggs, I assume?" She yelled out the chicken coop's open doorway. "Hey Keelyn, I didn't think you had any friends, did you pay this lot to follow you home?"

"I missed you too, Bella. Hurry your ass up and get in here, I want to hear all about how much you missed me."

It felt good to harass her sister again. Her smile, for a second, almost reached her eyes.

She swung her gaze over the group again, her eyes stopping and being held by one of the men with her sister.

He was tall. Taller than anyone she'd ever seen before. Big. Broad shouldered. He had what she would have called 'a nice face' in her previous life. Before. But now, after, it was his eyes that held her attention.

They were brown. Deep brown, like melted chocolate. But it wasn't their color that threw her. It was the primal look in them as he stared back at her that froze her to where she stood.

Her body started to react before her mind could unfreeze.

Somewhere deep, her very core responded to that look. She felt a surge of electricity rush between them, but before her body could melt under that gaze, before her feminine nature could trigger her to respond with a soft smile, a blush, or a lowering of her gaze, her mind unfroze.

It panicked.

Her heart started racing and her breathing sped up, but it was fear feeding her body now.

Her mind replayed images of her rape in the abandoned barn.

Of how
he
looked and smelled. Of the things
he
said as he pushed himself into her and ground his hips against her. Animalistic, that's what she remembered most. How his eyes glazed over as he found his release in her. How he rutted inside her, out of control.

Then after, when he was tucking himself away, he couldn't even look at her.

"I'm sorry," he'd said, right before he backed away and turned, running out of the barn and leaving her there in a puddle of skirts, on her back, in the dirt.

Bella broke the connection with the stranger's eyes, ducking back into the chicken coop and leaning against the wall just inside.

She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to block out the memories.

She took deep breaths and reminded herself that she was safe. She was home. And
he
was dead.

Bella pulled herself together as well as she could. She made a pocket out of her apron and filled it with enough eggs to feed the group that showed up out of the blue, and after taking another deep breath, she headed across the garden and into the house she grew up in.

Act natural,
she chanted under her breath.
Just act natural. Normal. Pretend everything is normal. Sit quietly, and let everyone else interact. You'll be fine. All men aren't like Sammy. You'll be fine.

As Bella walked through the open door to the kitchen, where her mother and sister were already cooking breakfast for their guests, Bella heard Keelyn's voice rise in surprise.

"Bella? Are you kidding me?"

Immediately Bella responded, "Damn it! You guys told her already? You couldn't let her settle in first?"

Crap. All she'd wanted was some time. She knew her sister would find out eventually, but she'd really been hoping that the strangers would be gone before her secret was revealed.

What the hell? Who thought they had the right to tell Keelyn anything yet?

Her stomach dropped, and she wasn't sure if the nausea she felt rising in the back of her throat was from the unwanted pregnancy or from knowing that she was being discussed in front of strangers.

Especially the tall one with the animal lust in his eyes.

Bella turned toward Keelyn, her apron still full of warm eggs from the chickens. She hadn't even made it all the way inside yet and they were talking about her!

"We don't even know these other people, and you've already spilled everything?"

Hurt and anger stung her eyes and she blinked, trying to keep the tears at bay.

She vaguely heard her mother denying that they told anyone anything, but her attention was on Keelyn alone.

Keelyn responded, saying something about how she'd run into their nearest neighbors, David and his eldest son Jordan, the night before.

Bella almost saw red when she realized the neighbors had been talking about her, telling her sister everything already, before Keelyn had even made it home safely.

And the strangers? Did they know as well?

Maybe that will dampen the look in the tall one's eyes,
she thought. She was used goods now. Surely he wouldn't still look at her like he just did outside.

"Let me guess, they couldn't keep their big mouths shut? They might as well make a grand announcement at the castle, save themselves some time from spreading my story one person at a time."

The words felt like venom on her lips. She wasn't used to thinking the worst of people, and even now it didn't feel right.

"They meant well, Bella..."

Her sister kept speaking but she barely heard. She looked at Keelyn, preparing to say more, but the look in her sister's eyes stopped her. Calmed her.

There was no pity there. Just her sister being her sister. Maybe some worry, but mostly she saw love. It was enough to reach through the unaccustomed anger and it allowed Bella to regain herself some.

With a sigh she gave the eggs she was carrying to her mother and said, "I know. I'm sure they meant well, but..."

She ignored everyone else in the room, sure that what little control over herself she'd managed to collect would disappear if she concentrated on anyone but Keelyn.

"How you holding up?" Keelyn asked.

"As well as could be expected, I guess. All things considered. But let's not talk about that now, please. Let's just eat. How about you introduce everyone, Kee. Let's start there, shall we?"

She uttered the polite words, but she didn't care about the introductions. At least until Keelyn introduced the pregnant lady.

Sandra was her name, and it seems she was the wife of one of the men, Naythan. She heard the other names as well, Bane and Mac, but she just let the rest of their words fall around her.

She watched Sandra's belly in fear and fascination instead.

It rolled. As everyone talked around her, she watched the woman's stomach roll and warp as she stared at it.

Of course living on a farm Bella was no stranger to the animals and their pregnancies. She'd even helped with the birthing on occasion. But seeing Sandra's stomach pulsate and stretch just reminded her of what was growing deep in her own belly.

She'd told her mom, and Ivy before that, that it wasn't the baby's fault that its father was an ass, but that didn't mean she was in any hurry for this whole situation to grow, either.

Throwing up was one thing. She could almost pretend that she was just coming down with something. But once she looked like Sandra...

Bella pulled her eyes from the woman's stomach and pushed her food around on her plate. She wasn't hungry, and she'd be lucky if she made it through everyone else eating without running from the room to throw up.

After everyone ate, Ivy showed the guests to their rooms, telling them to rest. The five had traveled hard to get here, and according to Keelyn, the strangers would be moving on in the morning.

They were trying to get Sandra to her mother's place, just a day or so further on. Sandra needed her mother's knowledge and herbs to calm her pregnancy until it was time to deliver.

Bella eyed Sandra's stomach again, thinking they might want to hurry.

* * *

L
ater on
, after everyone had rested, the farm's work was done for the day, and dinner was also pushed around on her plate, Bella took advantage of her mom and sister trying to get to know Keeyln's friends and she slipped outside when no one was looking.

Keelyn had been trying to get Bella alone all day, probably to talk, but Bella had no interest in talking to her sister in private. At least not until everyone else was gone in the morning.

As soon as she saw Keelyn off in a quiet corner with the one they called Bane, Bella slipped out.

The sky was dark already, a pale moon trying its best to light up the garden spread out before her. She settled into the swing her father had made many years before, rocking it with small kicks of her feet as she rolled her shoulders up and back, trying to work out the kinks.

She'd just started to relax when she heard movement from the shadows. She looked around, trying to place the soft, shuffling noise, while also darting her eyes here and there, trying to find a weapon close at hand.

There!

A shovel lay near the flower bed nearby, the one Ivy said she was going to try to get some new variety of plant to grow in.

She grabbed the long shaft, leaning it against her shoulder, elbows out, with the heavy, metal, digging end raised toward the sky.

She looked like all of David's sons next door when he was first teaching them to hit balls with a bat, but in her mind it was something way more sinister than balls headed her way in the darkness.