Page 1 of Claimed by the Alien Warrior Triad

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Aubrey

This isn’t my life.

My life? My life is carefully planned out.

I’m going to make partner at the law firm by 32. I’m going to be married by 33. I’ll have two kids by 36.

After I stopped getting my period, eight months ago, a visit to the doctor’s office put a wrinkle in the kids part of that. Tests confirmed I was infertile – but Joshua and I agreed adoption was an ethical alternative.

But the first stage of my plan? I achieved it –today.

I’ve worked my ass off for the last ten years to make partner – and today itfinallyhappened. I celebrated by coming home before 8pm for the first time in a decade; excited to tell my fiancé the incredible news.

The entire way home, as I pulled my jacket close against the chill November winds, I imagined his reaction: How his light blue eyes would sparkle when I told him that I’d just become the youngest-ever partner in the history of the prestigious New York law firm.

I gave the homeless veteran an extra dollar on my way out of the subway station, and he grinned and nodded as he always does. My hands shook with anticipation as I fumbled my key into the lock, opening the door to greet the love of my life…

…and then the truth hit me like a crowbar.

While I was slaving away at the office for the last ten years, all in an effort to make partner, my fiancé had made a ‘partner’, too.

I met her that evening, when I let myself into the apartment much earlier than Joshua had clearly anticipated and found them tangled in a passionate embrace.

She must have been eighteen or nineteen – all perkiness, curves, and “fuck me” tits.

I stood there, stunned, for a moment. Joshua and I had always had a fairly bland sex life, reserved to the bedroom and preferably in the dark. Seeing him inside another woman – her pert bottom resting on the same kitchen counter I chop vegetables on – felt like I’d walked into some kind of sick porno movie.

To her credit, the girl didn’t seem any more enthused by the interruption. Her eyes shot open and she smacked at Joshua’s back to warn him that they’d been busted.

“How long?” I yelled, as I stood there in the doorway. No “how could you?” or “who is she?”

I needed the timeframe – to quantify the betrayal.

I didn’t make partner in the law firm for nothing. In times of crisis, my mind goes to fact-finding mode.

Joshua couldn’t even look at me. His eyes fell to the floor. He was still hard, despite being interrupted.

“Eight months,” he eventually replied, and the answer hit me even harder than walking in on him balls deep in some naive young slut, inmykitchen with the so-called love ofmylife.

His words replayed in my head, even as I stared hatefully at the two of them.

Eight months.

Eight months almostto the daysince I’d gone through the trauma of being pronounced medically infertile.

I didn’t even say a word. I just backed away and closed the door of our apartment.

No, not ours any more.

His. He was welcome to it. This would be a place haunted by memories, filled with the ghosts of betrayal and the bitter taste of broken promises.

I stumbled back outside, past the same homeless veteran on the steps, and tumbled into the first E train that was headed downtown.

During the subway ride back, I was in a daze. When I finally got off at my stop, the coldness of the New York autumn – which was colder than winter in most states – assaulted me so sharply that it hurt.

But I didn’t care. Ineededit. The pain across my chilled face was the only thing in the world that still feltrealto me.

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