Alien Mate Experiment Read online

  “How big?”

  “Your job issues would be over if they hire you.”

  Semeera’s eyes got big. “Seriously? Shit! I should have called you.”

  “Yes, you should have.” Danielle gave her a squeeze, grinning, with a wink. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”

  “You know we will.”

  The sound of someone sucking teeth and an exasperated sigh brought Semeera’s attention to Shanti, standing apart from the crowd with her face turned to the sky and her phone to her ear. “Hang up the damn phone!”

  Semeera blinked quickly and looked at Danielle, who shook her head.

  “Just hang… I’ll get home when I get home.” Shanti shook her head. Her nimbus of auburn corkscrew curls bounced with the motion. “No, I don’t know when. Stop calling!” She pulled the phone away and stabbed the screen with her finger, ending the call with an annoyed growl. After a moment, she faced the bonfire and Semeera’s questioning expression and said, “The husband.”

  “Wow.” Semeera snorted. “You need the number for my divorce lawyer?”

  “Woman, don’t tempt. I’m about two seconds from dropping his whiny ass like a bad habit.” Shanti stuffed her phone in her back pocket, stalked over to Semeera, and hugged her. “How you doing?”

  “I’m good,” she said as they pulled apart. “Could be better, but from the sounds of it, Danielle is helping me with that.”

  Danielle snorted. “Not that she needs my help. Meer has some serious talent. The client I spoke to is eager to see more of her portfolio.”

  Semeera let out a derisive chuckle. “Portfolio. Wow. How long has it been since I had one of those?”

  “Ladies!” Royce draped his arms over Danielle’s and Semeera’s shoulders and insinuated his skinny sunburned self between them. “Do I hear shop talk when you should be talking about the latest Marvel feature or the upcoming Star Wars movie?” He gave Semeera a squeeze. “There’s also s’mores.”

  “Well hell, why didn’t you say that sooner?” Semeera pulled out of his hold and headed closer to the fire where two people were building the chocolate treats. “S’mores me!”

  Royce followed behind her. “There’s also hamburgers and hot dogs and—”

  “S’mores.” She took the offered dessert and bit into it with a thankful sigh. After finishing it, she held her hand out for another.

  “Is that all you’re going to eat?”

  “Maybe. I’ve been watching my girlish figure for too damn long.”

  Royce looked her up and down with an appreciative gleam in his brown eyes. “I would be happy to watch it for you. Did you pour yourself into those jeans? Because if so, bless you.” He made the sign of the cross with his palm in the air and then kissed his knuckle.

  Semeera was glad he thought her tight jeans were a fashion choice instead of the first sign that she’d ditched her exercise regime in favor of eating whatever the hell she wanted while sitting in front of the TV. She hadn’t exercised in months, breaking from her routine while she recovered from surgery, long before the divorce had even been on the table, and then she’d continued her negligence as a way of rebelling against her ex’s insensitivity about her ordeal. Of course, she ended up with a few added pounds that made her once-baggy jeans cling to her curves, but she didn’t care. And as soon as she had the money, she would update her wardrobe to match her new size. Until then, tight was her new look.

  She was just about to bite into her third s’more when lightning flashed overhead. Purple lightning. A boom of thunder that reverberated in her chest followed.

  “Damn! Did you feel that?” Royce put his hand to his chest.

  Gavin, coming up behind them, said, “Feel it, nothing. Did you see it? I’ve never seen purple lightning before.” He looked around and several people shook their heads.

  Josie pulled out her phone. “I’m getting video of this. That is gorgeous.”

  Semeera agreed and pulled out her own phone. She doubted her camera would properly pick up the beauty of the lightning dancing cloud to cloud, but the recording would be a great way to jog her memory of the moment.

  Mason said, “I thought the forecast said it was supposed to be clear tonight.” He pulled out his phone, but didn’t point it at the sky like the others, probably checking the weather.

  “Don’t worry, sugar.” Shanti gave him a bump with her hip. “I’ve got an umbrella you can use to keep from melting.”

  “Ha. Ha.”

  A bolt hitting close to the bonfire ended all amusement. The air crackled and heat washed over them. The deafening roll of thunder that followed close behind knocked over a few people and backed up others.

  Semeera saw her fear reflected back at her in her friends’ eyes. Before she could suggest heading for cover, another bolt hit the bonfire, spraying burning wood and ash over the group.

  “Holy shit! Run!”

  She didn’t know who had yelled the command, but the crowd scattered amid screams and more cursing. Her frantic flight propelled her toward Mason’s car, which she hoped would be safe. Was a car safe in a lightning storm? She couldn’t remember anything she’d learned back in school about avoiding strikes.

  And then it didn’t seem to matter as purple lightning rained around her. Strike after strike coming fast. Blinding. Hot. The air sizzled with electricity that made her ears ring and her muscles tense and lock up.

  She tried to push through the pain, to continue running, even if she wasn’t sure she was running straight. She prayed to survive this. Prayed hard. She wasn’t even religious. But damned if she wasn’t begging God, Zeus, Ra, Odin, and anyone else she could think of for a favor right then. She didn’t want to die.

  The lightning didn’t hurt when it hit her. It wasn’t even hot. Probably because every single nerve in her body had burnt to a crisp in a second, cutting off all sensation. A blessing in disguise as she breathed her last.

  And her final thought before giving up to oblivion—why did it feel as if she was floating?

  Kader jammed his port control forward while firing, sending his fighter into a spin and spraying everyone on that plane with his fake ammunition. He caught several of his opponents by surprise. Their angry hissing curses through the comm made that evident.

  He grinned as he dipped his controls and pulled his fighter out of the spin that would have made a lesser warrior dizzy enough to puke. Not him. He was dizzy but wouldn’t puke. The dizziness didn’t hinder him. He compensated the way his trainers taught him, chased one opponent, and tagged him with fake fire before his vision righted itself.

  More cursing.

  His blood sang through his veins. Exhilaration beat his heart instead of involuntary brain function. Only one thing would make this better—facing true enemies with live ammunition.

  This battle was a training exercise with the captains of the other science vessels in the area. It was the only battle any of them would see while they commanded ships with barely any firepower and even less strategic value, which meant they would never see combat. Not that Kader would see combat even if an enemy engaged with the science vessels.

  “Captain Kader, this is your ten-minute warning.”

  Kader ignored the monotone voice of his ship’s technician and chased another fighter who flew in erratic patterns to escape being hit. It wouldn’t do the male any good. And to prove that point, Kader stayed with him, closing the distance between them, toying with his prey and almost tasting the fear in the air.

  He flicked his tongue, knowing all he would scent was himself since he was enclosed in the cockpit of his fighter.

  “Captain Kader, did you hear my previous transmission? At your current distance—”

  “Acknowledged!” Kader clenched his teeth with an annoyed hiss that turned into a roar of pure loathing.

  He signaled his retreat and turned his fighter back to his ship, flipping the booster so he made it in time. A countdown appeared on his cockpit screen. He hissed at it and pushed his fighter faster. Rec
kless, for sure. But better to be reckless than caught outside when the countdown hit zero.

  His mouth hitched up on one side in a deadly smirk as he imagined plowing into his ship and ending it all. Imagination only. He was a warrior with a duty. There was nothing more important to a warrior than his duty—no matter how mind-numbingly staid that duty was.

  The countdown showed twenty seconds as his ship came into sight.

  “Captain Kader, your approach speed will cause a collision.” The male’s voice held panic.

  Coward.

  His whole ship was manned by cowards. Not their fault. They weren’t warriors like him. The only ones who came close to his stature, and not that close at all, were the security personnel. Their purpose was to guard, and they only had enough training to do just that. They weren’t like him. No one on his ship was like him, because a science vessel didn’t need more than one warrior.

  “Captain Kader, you cannot hope to slow down in time.”

  He ignored the panicked male and stayed his course and speed, watching his ship grow bigger every second as the clock continued to count down.

  Five seconds.

  He had to time it just right.

  “Captain!”

  Two seconds.

  Kader wrenched his controls, flipping the fighter so the boosters now caused a sudden deceleration that threw him against his harness. The fighter came to a complete halt as the countdown hit zero and his power cut off.

  He floated beside his ship, within visual distance of the landing bay and the personnel there who stopped running around as though being chased by stinging flyers and stared at him.

  He opened his comm—the only thing that still functioned on his fighter—and barked, “Reel me in already!”

  “Y-Yes, Captain. Right away.”

  He hissed and crossed his arms, annoyed with himself, annoyed with his crew, and most of all, annoyed with that fucking countdown.

  The fighter jolted as a tether hit it and then again as the landing bay crew pulled him into the bay. The second he cleared the atmospheric barrier, he shoved open his cockpit and jumped out.

  No one said anything as he stalked away. Smart. He wasn’t in the mood. Then again, when was he ever?

  “Captain.”

  And his day got worse. He stopped with a hard sigh and waited for the lead scientist of an experiment he hadn’t bothered to familiarize himself with. Once the female reached his side, he continued walking. “State your purpose.”

  “That was… scary, Captain. Many thought you wouldn’t stop in time.”

  “You insult me.”

  The female gasped, her fear thick in the air. “F-Forgiveness, Captain. That wasn’t my intention.”

  He sighed again. “What do you want?”

  “Yes. Of course. The readings from the star report optimal output…”

  Kader tuned out her words as she rambled on about nonsense that meant nothing to him. Why couldn’t she just say what she needed instead of subjecting him to this barrage of useless information?

  He didn’t care about any of it. Nothing on this ship interested him, save his fighter, which was out of commission for another two weeks, information that made his mood even darker. He wanted to return to his suite and do something a warrior would never do—pout.

  Such a childish emotion should have been beaten out of him during training. He’d thought it had, and yet here he was.

  Pouting.

  Just thinking the word made him want to break something. And if the female beside him didn’t get to her point soon, she would become his unlucky victim.

  He slammed his tail on the floor with a resounding bang that made the female jump away from him, yelping with fear that perfumed the hall. “I have little patience at this moment, female. What. Do. You. Want?”

  The lead scientist—he couldn’t even be bothered to remember her name—pulled herself up to her full height with her chin in the air. Brave, but her stance lacked force since the top of her head barely reached his shoulder. If that. “It is time to run the transport experiment.”

  “Proceed.” He continued walking.

  “Captain Kader, protocol dictates you be on the bridge when—”

  He hissed and slammed his tail again.

  “I do not make the rules, Captain.”

  “And thus you have nothing to fear from my irritation.” He reversed his direction to head for the bridge, the lead scientist following several paces behind him. Smart female.

  “Captain on the bridge,” one of his crew called the moment he entered.

  “Get on with it already,” he barked as he made his way to his chair, ignoring all those who saluted him and then hissing at them to get them moving.

  The lead scientist hurried to the nearest technician. They conferred for a moment in low tones before the lead scientist faced the view screen that showed the star they were using as a power source for whatever the hell they were doing.

  The moment the lead scientist opened her mouth Kader tuned her out. He didn’t care. So long as her experiment didn’t blow up his ship, she could do whatever she wanted. None of it concerned him.

  He closed his eyes in meditation, blocking all noise and activity, to rein in his turbulent emotions so the next person who spoke to him didn’t get his claws in their throat. His current predicament wasn’t their fault. That honor lay with his superior, the male who’d promoted Kader to the honor of captaining this ship.

  And then the ship bucked to the side and alarms sounded around him, shattering his peace. He opened his eyes while gripping the armrests of his chair to keep from being thrown off it.

  Purple static sizzled around the bridge and fear was heavy in the air.

  The ship bucked again.

  “Report!”

  A technician said in a frantic tone, “Energy levels rising dangerously fast.”

  “Shut it down.”

  “I can’t, Captain. The controls stopped responding. Energy levels entering critical.”

  Kader slammed his fist down on the emergency switch. “Abandon ship!”

  Everyone scrambled from the bridge except the five essential crew members and himself. They had to hold the ship together as long as possible so everyone could evacuate.

  He grumbled under his breath, “If I survive this, I will gut that female.”

  “Captain?”

  “Get that machine shut down. Do whatever you have to. I wasn’t planning on dying today.”

  “Controls remain frozen, Captain. Energy spike incoming. Brace.”

  Kader refused to close his eyes. He wanted to see death coming. He gripped his armrests in anticipation of the pain of his body being ripped to shreds as the ship exploded.

  The purple static changed to purple lightning. Thick sizzling bolts of hot energy flashed around the bridge, narrowly missing the crew. And then they converged into one massive bolt that struck the bridge with a deafening boom. The impact threw everyone from their seats to bang against the walls and slam against the floor.

  Even Kader couldn’t maintain his grip, getting thrown from his chair to fall the three levels to the lowest floor of the bridge and land inches from the outline of the scorch mark where the bolt hit.

  And then all was silence. No alarms. No yelling. It took Kader a moment to realize he was deaf from the boom. Hopefully his hearing would return. Until then, the rest of him was whole, the minor pain he felt was ignorable, and he had a job to do.

  The lightning and static had stopped. The ship no longer shuddered as though it would shake apart any second. If he could hear the technicians, they would probably report that the worst of it was behind them. He would have to go up to the first level to see for himself, thanks to his hearing loss. Since his ship hadn’t exploded, he wouldn’t have to gut the lead scientist for putting them all in danger.

  He pushed to his feet to assess the damage from the lightning and then froze.

  The sight before him made no sense. And staring at it gave no answers
, but he couldn’t look away.

  The transportation experiment had worked. As to what it had transported, he would leave that up to the scientists to ascertain.

  Chapter 2

  The little alien was brown, the color of cliff jewels. A pretty enough shade but a bit strange. Kader wondered if the color covered the alien completely. The clothing it wore made it hard to tell. At least he thought it was clothing. That could be its skin. It was tight enough—the portion on its legs, anyway.

  “Our scans detect ovaries, thus we believe it is female, Captain.” Doctor Gyan, a scientist brought on board when their guest had arrived, showed Kader his tablet full of data. Or tried to.

  Kader’s hearing had returned with no lingering effects from the drama on the bridge. He hadn’t even needed medical attention, although the head doctor had forced him and the rest of the bridge crew to submit to exams before clearing them to return to duty.

  All were healthy with no major injuries. Kader sustained no damage at all, but he was a warrior. He was trained to take punishment far worse than that which the failed experiment had inflicted on him. Actually, not failed, considering what lay in the infirmary of his ship.

  He ignored Gyan’s tablet to stare at the female. Not like their females at all. Her body was strangely curvy and lacked scales. Her face was squished and none of her teeth protruded past her lips—which were too plump. Everything about the alien was soft. And small.

  She lay on a bed in the infirmary and her feet barely reached the midpoint. When Kader used the infirmary beds, during the physicals he never thought he needed, his feet hung off the edge. He doubted the female would stand taller than his waist.

  Had their experiment stolen a child?

  As if hearing his question, Gyan said, “As near as we can tell, using only scans and inference, she is a mature adult of her species. Whatever that species may be. We’ve searched all our databases and have found no matches. The databases of our nearest allies had nothing as well.”

  “You didn’t let on what you searched for, correct?”

  “Give me more credit than that, Captain. I know we’ve only just met, but I didn’t rise to my current rank by being stupid. I merely requested access to their files and copied them all for later research.”