Page 2 of The Alien Warrior's Mate

The way she’d been ever since her sister betrayed her.

“No!” Sara fought for freedom, her nails raking over whatever she could find. The jelly creature used its other tentacle to restrain her, wrapping its disgusting limb around her and pinning her arms to her sides.

The more she screamed, the more its translucent skin curdled. She opened her mouth wider and pushed out another cry. At that moment, the jelly creature slapped a limb over her mouth.

Sara almost gagged. The tentacles had weird upside-down suction cups that made her want to wash her mouth out with a million bottles of Listerine. Begging for death to come quickly, Sara pinned her mouth shut to keep as much of her kidnapper’s tentacles away from her tongue.

The jelly creature used his third arm to free a scanner from his pouch. The alien brought it close to her face. Sara stiffened and watched as he passed it over her body. It glowed and pulsed. When it passed over the birthmark on her shoulder, the scanner started beeping like a heart monitor gone awry.

Beep! Beep! Beep!

His tentacle slipped away from her mouth as his body loosened with shock. Free from the alien’s disgusting restraint, she gathered up every drop of spit in her mouth and hurled it at him. The jelly creature didn’t even blink as her spittle slopped across his mask and slipped down to his neck.Disgusting.

“What do you want with me?” Sara shrieked.

No answer.

“Who the hell are you?” She looked him up and down. “Whatare you?”

The jelly creature slipped the tool back into his bag and pulled out another device. This one was flat and round like a miniature flying saucer.

She scoffed under her breath. “What’s that, huh? Are you phoning your friends to beam us up?”

He looked at her, staring like she was some strange artifact from a forgotten land. Sara stared right back, observing his long, jelly tentacles and his strange, translucent torso. There was no way this was real.

The breeze tossing her curls by the handful? Fake.

The night sky crouching low around them like a child wanting to play with its toys? Fake.

The giant beam of light blasting from the sky and encapsulating her in a strange, ticklish warmth? Fake, fake, fake.

“I’m dreaming. I’m dreaming,” Sara mumbled to herself. Where were a couple of witches and red shoes when she needed them? If only she could slap her feet together a couple of times and wake up in her bed, she’d be golden.

“None of this is real,” she cried.

As she spoke, her body rose like she was a celebrity swooping into a concert via a harness. Except there was no harness. And there was only an audience of one. An unearthly creature with tentacles and jelly skin.

A massive saucer broke through the clouds, stealing her breath. Blinking yellow lights filled the sky. The trees bowed in reverence, massive oaks that resisted hurricane-level winds acting like little saplings with no roots. Heads bent. Leaves hanging low.

The saucer’s two metal doors slid apart, revealing a gaping mouth ready to gobble her up. Sara gritted her teeth and struggled some more, but it was useless. Even if she escaped the jelly aliens’ clutches, the light was like an escalator. There was only one direction to go and it was up.

They shot into an opening in the spaceship and, as they crested the top, Sara gasped. She’d expected computers. Maybe giant, crystalized eggs filled with more baby jelly creatures just waiting to bust out into the world.

What she saw was even more disturbing. A long line of cots spread out as far as the eye could see. Women lay on the beds, staring up at the ceiling with unseeing eyes. Unmoving. Unresistant. Deathly still.

From a cursory glance, she noticed that the women were of wide and varying ethnicities—Caucasian, Hispanic, Asian, Black. The aliens didn’t discriminate. She would give them a point toward decency except that all the women were strapped to cots and looked as high as a kite.

Is that what they’re going to do to me?

Panic built in her heart, cascading into a wave of near-crippling fear.

Okay, Sara. Just breathe. You’re dreaming.

Obviously.

There was a chrome roof over her head.

And women trapped in beds.

---