“Easy little flower,” The big alien holding her whispered into her ear and it caused her to suck in the breath she had been holding. “Breathe; you are safe.”
Was she? or was that a lie too? Because clearly, he had not told her the truth when he said her sister was unharmed.
Sara, or the alien that spoke with her voice was coming toward her and Megan could do nothing but press herself back into the alien holding her.
Her sister had been a pretty woman with red hair and green eyes, of average height and curves. This Sara had metallic gold skin like the rest of them, her hair was red but with a copper and gold shimmer that was never produced in nature. She still had the curves and the height, but she moved like the rest of them, with a sensuous slide. Her green eyes were cat like and glowed. Then there were the fangs. Megan was breathing now, but that was the only improvement.
Something she saw in her face had Sara flinching. Megan watched as pain shot across those alien eyes. Was her sister in there?
“Meggy please,” Sara said. It made Megan catch her breath at the nickname she hadn’t heard since she was a child.
The old familiarity of it had Megan’s breath hitching. Since Sara had disappeared she had spent all her time wondering if she would ever see her again. Now she was doubting what she was seeing, but not what she was feeling. She knew Sara, she knew her. Whatever had happened to change her this way it was still Sara. As the surety slid over her, Megan lost some of her panic and her breath started to come easier, her death grip on the alien Morax released enough that she was no longer clinging to the arm that held her around the waist.
She pushed at that arm wanting to go to her sister, but he didn’t release her until she turned her head and looked at him. Whatever he saw must have reassured him that she was not about to go insane, or fall because he released her slowly. Megan turned back to look at her sister while he did so in increments. She studied her trying to see Sara in that alien gold skin and glowing eyes.
When Morax finally released her fully she took a step away from him and toward Sara, who was looking heart torn. The worry and pain on that almost familiar face made Megan speak finally.
“I thought I would never see you again,” she said softly. Unaware that like her sister she was crying. Megan pressed her lips together taking another step towards her sister. “It is you, isn’t it? Sara?”
“I’ll explain everything,” Sara closed her eyes as relief seemed to flood her. Then she sucked in a breath and spoke as if it was difficult to make the words come out. “A few things have happened and I will explain everything, just don’t be afraid of me. I know what I look like but it’s me.”
Hearing the pleading in her words, and the tone of them. The biggest warrior, the one Sara had called Creeg stepped toward his mate and looked ready to defend her to the death. Sara reached back and put her hand up to keep him back, eyes fixed on Megan. Waiting.
Megan took a long look at her, taking in the gold skin and glowing eyes, the long length of her fiery red gold hair, but the face was the same. The color glowing out at her was Sara’s green eyes, despite the alien slant they now had. More than that, she acted like her sister, spoke like her sister, and felt like her sister.
“I thought I would never see you again.” This time when Megan said the words she was hurling herself the short distance into her sister’s arms. Those arms might be metallic gold in color, but they closed around her just as they always had, offering comfort and safety Megan was not likely to take for granted again in this lifetime.
***
The introductions were skipped when it was suggested strongly that Sara take her sister to her room and settle her while they dealt with the pesky business of escaping the solar system through what looked to Megan to be hundreds of ships heading for Earth. Since all the warriors were finding their battle stations Sara ushered her out of there fast.
“What is happening?” Megan asked on a whisper, her arms around her sister tightening at the sight on the screen behind them. The Tellox Morax handed Sara the quilt he was still holding, the only thing they managed to bring with them from Earth, besides the dogs. But it was Megan he watched. His eyes holding hers, despite the scenes of ships holding everyone else’s attention. She was caught in those Spanish gold eyes until the portal shut with a whoosh between them freeing her.
“The Tellox are invading Earth,” Sara answered with an angry growl Megan had never heard in her voice. That had her head whipping around to look at her sister.
“What?!” she gasped. “Why?”
Sara blew out an angry breath and shook her head. “I’ll explain everything that has happened. For now, let’s get you settled while Creeg gets us away from here.”
Megan gave her sister wide eyes. “Ariel is down there.”
“I know,” Sara whispered her answer with such pain there was an answering clutch in Megan’s heart.
“What will happen to her?”
Sara shook her head. “I don’t know, but they won’t hurt her. Even if they don’t find out who she is they will still see her as a breedable female.” The words were practically a hiss through clenched jaws, and Megan felt the blood drain from her face at the implications.
She sucked in a breath and looked at the changes to her sister with new eyes. “What did they do to you? And what do you mean if they don’t find out who she is? Who is she?”
Sara shook her head again and began to lead Megan down the corridor. “My sister. And I will tell you everything. The whole crazy story. Let’s just get somewhere we can sit down. It’s a doozy.”
She did not need Sara to tell her where they were going once they stepped onto the next deck. Lucky and Penny were awake and scratching at a portal down the long hall. Megan could hear them clear down the passageway and it made her remember that as much as she itched to have at least one of her instruments and maybe some clothes, at least they had the important things. Then she remembered Ariel and worried. She quickened her step needing both the comfort of her dogs and the reassurance they had not suffered from whatever Morax had done to them. She was only a step away when the door slid open the dogs practically fell through the portal. Their frantic yips and bouncing around had Megan laughing and shushing them. She ended up on her butt in the hall with the dogs squirming over her lap. It took Megan a moment to realize that Sara was hanging back, but when she turned to look around for her, she found her a good ten feet back down the corridor. There was such a sad look on her face while she looked at them that it hurt Megan’s heart to see it. She pushed Lucky off her thigh and stood up.
“What is it?”
“My scent has changed enough that the dogs don’t know me,” Sara explained. “When I woke them up they saw me as a threat.”
As soon as she started talking Megan saw what she meant because the dogs turned and got between Megan and Sara showing their teeth and bristling in warning at the woman who just weeks ago they had followed around the kitchen in hopeless canine adoration.
Sara made no move to come closer as Megan called them to heel and finally got them settled enough to listen. But though she tried to get them to let Sara come to them slowly, the second her sister made a move toward them they started up all over again.
“It’s alright,” Sara said her voice trying to reassure, but Megan could see how much the dogs' reaction hurt her. “We’ll let them get used to the ship slowly.” She pointed to a port down the hall from Megan’s. “There is a green space there, I had you put next to it so you could take the dogs there yourself. Any mess they make, Creeg assured me, would be absorbed by the turf and utilized in the matrix. So, they can run and play there as much as they want. It’s also where the garden is located so you can relax there if ship life or too much time among Tellox warriors starts to get to you, and you need alone time.”
Megan canted her head and studied her sister. “Where do you go when you want to be alone?”
Sara smiled, and there was something that crossed the line of bittersweet in that smile. “I’m never alone.” Then something dawned on her face and she smiled, for real this time. “Funny,” she said that familiar smile bringing one to Megan’s face because she had wondered if she would ever see it again.
“What’s funny?”
Sara shrugged. “I feel like I should miss my alone time, but I don’t. I didn’t even notice until you said that.” She looked at the dogs who were standing at Megan’s side at attention. Sitting but with eyes glued to her, in case she made a move they did not like. She lost the smile, but gained it again when her eyes found Megan’s. “I am so freaking glad you are here, I cannot tell you. I should feel guilty about taking you from your home but I’m just happy you’re with me.”
“I’m ready for that doozy of a story any time you want to share,” Megan offered, making her sister snort.
The ship quivered around them and Sara looked up, and a strange look came over her that had Megan wondering what Sara was hearing that she was not. “We are in lightspeed and out of the danger area. One ship tried to follow but Creeg thinks we will lose him long before he can follow us to Aa-ryal.”
Megan felt her forehead scrunch in her bewilderment. “How do you know that and what is Aa-ryal?”
She knew Sara was back with her when her eyes lost that faraway look in them and she smiled at Megan. “That’s part of the story I need to tell you.” She looked around. “Do you think you can keep the dogs from jumping me if we head for the green?”
Megan made that whistle she made when she wanted their attention and both dogs turned from eyeing Sara to looking at Megan with intense concentration. She pointed down the hall toward where Sara had said the green was located. “Go.”
The dogs went. Sara shook her head.
“They always did mind you better,” she muttered, and followed Megan to the door, careful to keep a reasonable distance until they were all in the green and the dogs were exploring. Not far, they kept an eye on her, but far enough that they could find a bench and sit down. The dogs were romping like the puppies they almost were and the sight seemed to lighten something in Sara’s eyes that Megan was happy to see. She looked around and wondered how something like this was possible on a metal ship.
“It’s incredible.” She could not see an end to the long green grasses or sporadic trees, she did see what looked like a garden in the distance and what looked like cute little robots buzzing and whirring around it.
“I know,” Sara said shaking her head as she looked around as if she too was seeing it for the first time. “I had no idea this was here until I mentioned my worry about the dogs on a space ship and he mentioned the romping green.”
The title made Megan chuckle. “The romping Green? They actually named it that?”
“No,” Sara said flashing her one of her slightly wicked smiles. “I did. They just call it ‘the green’, but as far as I can tell they are carnivores so this has to all be for when they need to play and they are stuck on the ship.”
Megan blinked and looked from her to the distant garden. “They have a garden but they don’t eat from it?”
“Oxygen,” she said with her own wondering shrug. “I was told that the oxygen for the ship is produced in this chamber, but they leave most of it open rather than cultivating all of it for that purpose, because the ship crew tends to need to run here.
Megan started to panic just a little. “If the oxygen in the ship is produced here, what happens if two frisky golden retrievers romp where they should not?” she was already standing up to call them back but Sara grabbed her arm.
“The collars they put on the dogs after transporting them to the ship will keep them out of the areas they aren’t allowed in.”
Sara looked a little uncomfortable for a moment. “A few things I need to warn you about. They have micro pollinators that fly around pollinating everything like real bugs. They won’t harm you but in case you see them and they freak you out.” She shuddered. “I have to admit those are a little creepy to me. The robot gardeners are cute, but robot bugs?” she shuddered again. “Just…no. Not to mention that some of the plants they grow are carnivorous.” Sara shuddered again. “I was told to warn you to stay out of the back garden, most of the plants back there, they have because they are from their home planet and produce high levels of oxygen, but some of them have teeth,” Now it was Megan’s turn to shudder, while her sister grimaced at the thought. “Others have spines they shoot that can knock out small prey, he was going to tell me what the others did but I assured him we would stay out of the garden.”
Megan might have laughed at her sister’s aversion to any kind of bugs, even fake ones, but carnivorous plants? Her sister was right, she didn’t need to know more, she would stay well away from the back garden. Quite frankly the statement about them having teeth was more than sufficient to warm her away.
“Besides the collars,” Sara was going on. “They have synthetic oxygen machines if the oxygen production was not enough, or if the green takes damage in flight, they just prefer the smell of this type, rather than the synthetic oxygen they produce. So, the dogs won’t hurt us, even if they did cause damage, which I assure you they cannot do anyway.”
Megan sat back down. She took one last look around checking that the dogs were busy exploring and marking territory, then she turned back to her sister. “Alright, we are safely away from Earth and the dogs are distracted, we are sitting and no one is around but the garden bugs and carnivorous plants.” She motioned to Sara’s obvious changes. “What happened to you, why are the Tellox invading Earth and why would Ariel or I be important?”
Sara told her the whole story from catching the eye of a Tellox Commander, to a claiming that had far reaching consequences, to her human body, to the Tellox and to the Earth itself. She spoke of distant worlds, psychic connections, crazy Kings and wild escapes. By the time she was done Megan wondered what she would have thought if she did not have the proof of her sister’s insane tale all around her. She knew she was sitting there with a dumb look on her face, her mouth hanging open, but she had an excuse, she really did. She was twenty, and already a homebody. She wrote music, puttered in her garden and played with her dogs. She was not a planet hopping adventurer. Her sister made quilts and sold them on Etsy, and now apparently was mated to an alien being and no longer human.
Of the three of them Ariel, the youngest sister who was weeks away from her eighteenth birthday was the only one who might be qualified for such wild adventures, she at least was a child prodigy in math and computer science. She could probably take apart and put back together the ship that was presently flying them to weird exotic planets. Megan didn’t like to go into town for fear she would be expected to converse with strangers, something she was terrible at.
She finally closed her mouth when the silence between them lengthened. The dogs had returned to her side and Penny had pushed herself between Megan and Sara when she was focused on not hyperventilating and didn’t notice. Both dogs must have felt her tension mounting because they were pressed close, giving Sara a warning glare and soft growls rolled from their throats. Megan absently patted them in reassurance. Then she wrapped her arms around Lucky at her side and pushed her face into his soft fur, taking the comfort she needed to keep from screaming or crying, neither of which would be at all helpful. Finally, she pulled herself back upright and met her sister’s eyes.
“Alright,” she said with a little hitch in her voice that had her clearing her throat. “What happens now?”
Sara looked her over carefully as if expecting something else. “That’s it? You reacted more strongly when your agent told you touring was a necessity.”
Megan grimaced at the memory of that nightmare, then shook her head self-deprecatingly. “When my sister disappeared, it put a lot of things into perspective.” She blew out a breath. “You are safe and we are together. If we can find Ariel before she blows up the Tellox with their own weapons we will be fine, no matter where in the universe we end up.”
Sara blinked at her and then blew out a long breath. You are taking thing better than I did,” she muttered.
“Well, I was not the one kidnapped from Earth and mated against my will to strange alien who then transformed me into another species.” She raised a hand and dropped it. “I just got picked up by my sister who has been transformed into an alien and told that the Earth is being invaded for breedable females.” Now she raised both hands and acted as if she was weighing the two things. “Close, but I’m thinking you have the better right to be upset.” She dropped her hands and went serious, studying her sisters familiar yet strange face. “How are you really doing with all of this and that scary mate of yours?”
Sara rubbed her eyes, blowing out another breath. “I need him, and somewhere along the way I fell in love with him, but I don’t know that I can forgive him.” She met her sister’s eyes. “Do you see what I mean? If he had left me alone none of this would be happening.”
Megan studied her sister and spoke gently “If he had left you alone, you would be alone,” she said surprising Sara. “And so, would he.”
“But the Earth would be safe. You would be safe, and Ariel would be…”
“Working on world domination,” Megan said interrupting her, making Sara laugh despite the serious atmosphere.
“True,” Sara said, her lips still quirked on a laugh. “But if something happens to her I don’t think I can bear it.”
“Don’t do that to yourself or your,” she stuttered a bit on the title, but then continued. “Mate. None of you knew what would happen, and it sounds like he was as much a victim of biology as you were. Maybe instead we can marvel at the hands of fate that had to be set in motion to bring about the meeting between a human woman in a small town in California and a Tellox Warrior from across the galaxies.”
Sara laughed and hugged her. “You always were a romantic,” she said on a laugh, but her arms were tight around Megan, and there was a note of dark behind the light of her laugh.
“What?” Megan asked.
“Maybe I can accept the hands of fate brought me and Creeg to each other, but the domination of Earth seems a high price to pay.”
Megan thought about that and squeezed her sister in reassurance. “Since we have no idea what is going to happen next we can’t really say whether it will be worth it to the rest of the world. All we can do is the best we can with whatever comes.” She squeezed her sister again. “You already seem to be doing that so don’t borrow more trouble than you have.”
That made Sara smile and Megan knew she was remembering Gramps and his always sage advice for any situation. “I don’t remember you being this grown up a month ago.”
This time it was Megan who needed the reassurance, hugging her sister harder, closing her eyes at the familiar feel of her despite a change in her genetics. Her answer to that was simple. “You’re not the only one who had a rough month.”