Alien Protector's Christmas Captive Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Also by Viki Storm

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  ALIEN PROTECTOR'S CHRISTMAS CAPTIVE

  A Kenorian Warriors Standalone Novella

  Viki Storm

  © Viki Storm 2019. All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form by any means without the prior written consent of the author, except in the case of brief quotations for critical reviews and certain noncommercial uses permitted by law. This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, locations, and events portrayed in this work are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously.

  Also by Viki Storm

  Sold to the Alien Prince (Zalaryn Raiders Book 1)

  Captured by the Alien Warrior (Zalaryn Raiders Book 2)

  Claimed by the Alien Mercenary (Zalaryn Raiders Book 3)

  Conquering His Queen (Zalaryn Conquerors Book 1)

  Kidnapping His Rebel (Zalaryn Conquerors Book 2)

  Taking His Captive (Zalaryn Conquerors Book 3)

  Alien Rogue’s Captive (Kenorian Warriors Book 1)

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  Chapter 1

  Alexis

  I’m smart. Seriously, I’m not bragging. I literally just got a full-ride scholarship to UC Berkeley. I won the Young Coders of California award for an app I developed when I was thirteen. So why can’t I figure out how to change a flat tire?

  I have the owner’s manual resting on one leg and a YouTube video playing as my phone balances on the other leg, but I still have no idea what I’m doing.

  I could call my dad. He’d be here in fifteen minutes flat. Ready and willing to help… and lecture me about why I shouldn’t have been out, why I should listen to my parents—and the fact that I can’t change a tire proves their point that I shouldn’t go to college up north.

  That I can’t go to college up north. Scholarship be damned.

  Then I’d remind him it’s his fault I can’t change a tire. When I got a flat in high school, he came to help, and I asked him to show me what he was doing. “Just wait in the car,” he said, “and we’ll get out of here quicker.”

  “But what if I get another flat some other time?” I argued.

  “You don’t need to know how to change a tire,” he said, “because you have me to do it for you.” I knew that was the end of the discussion. The seventeen-year-old me didn’t really want to know how to change a tire, so I obediently got back inside.

  Now here I am, four years older and not a speck wiser.

  I toss the owner’s manual back into the car and pick up my phone. I’m sitting on the curb, the contents of my trunk scattered on the sidewalk, and I’m secretly bitter that no one’s stopped to help me. Two police cars have driven by, too; I can only hope that they were in the middle of solving a crime.

  That’s the problem with living in a big city: no one helps anyone because they assume someone else will do it. There’s a name for that, Buck Passing Syndrome or something. If I was on an isolated country road I bet someone would have stopped. Hell, if I was on the Fifteen Freeway on my way to Vegas, someone would have stopped. But I’m in Los Angeles, on Florence Avenue, right off the Seven-Ten Freeway, on a street that looks like it was used for the background scenes of Stand and Deliver. A movie I’ve seen in literally every math class I’ve taken since seventh grade. It’s definitely not the place for a girl to be sitting on the curb with a flat tire.

  I scroll through the video search results and pick a different video. Okay, step one, get the jack and the wrench. Done. Step two, place the jack underneath the car—okay, wait. I pause the video and turn on my phone flashlight, getting down on my hands and knees to try and find the place I’m supposed to put the jack. The guy on the video says it’s important to put the jack in the right spot, otherwise you’ll screw up your car’s frame. There’s supposed to be a notch, but there isn’t. I swear there isn’t. I lean down a little further, shining my light up and down and all around.

  Once again I’m aware of the irony that not only was I top of my honors program cohort at Pasadena City College, not only do I have several awards for programming and robotics, not only was I accepted to UC Berkeley’s computer science program, but I was given a full scholarship to boot… and I can’t swap out a tire on an old Honda Civic.

  I programmed a robot to scan a row of crops and pick only the heads of lettuce that were above twenty centimeters in diameter. I won first place in last year’s collegiate robotics competition. They’d probably retroactively take away my award if the committee could see me now.

  “Look at that ass,” someone behind me says. “Ooh, baby, yeah, she’s been waiting for us.”

  I spin around, little rocks grinding under my knees, painfully aware that yes, I’d been on my hands and knees on the sidewalk. But that’s only a sexually suggestive pose if you’re a pervert. If you’re a helpful young man who’s going to help a stranger change a tire, then there’s nothing untoward about it.

  There’s two guys standing there, probably about my age, early twenties. They have shaved heads; one has tattoos covering his scalp and neck. I might be sheltered, I might be in the wrong part of town, but I have cable TV, and I’ve seen enough episodes of Gangland and Lockdown to recognize gang tattoos. They’re wearing jeans and sports jerseys, but I know from the aforementioned cable TV documentaries that the prevalent gangs in East LA don’t wear colors.

  “You been waiting for us?” Mr. Tattoo Head says. He’s got a thick accent like he was an extra on Stand and Deliver.

  “I have a flat tire,” I say, not really answering his question. I don’t want to piss them off, but I don’t want to encourage them, either. “Do you know how to change a flat tire?” I ask.

  “Bitch,” the first guy says. He’s wearing a Dodgers jersey, but it’s unbuttoned, and underneath he’s wearing a wife-beater. The tattoos on his chest and shoulders are the same hastily scrawled looking letters and numbers of his gang. They match the ones on his buddy’s skull. “We ain’t spoiled little rich girls, driving around in a car daddy bought for our sixteenth birthday.”

  “That’s a no?” I ask. I’m confused, as the 2010 hand-me-down Civic is not my idea of a spoiled rich girl car—but it doesn’t seem fruitful to explain that to these guys.

  “What are you doing here?” Mr. Tattoo Head asks.

  “She come from Brentwood or La Cañada looking for fun with some real men, is that right?” Mr. Jersey says.

  I don’t answer.

  “Where you from?” Mr. Tattoo asks. “Because you’re in the wrong neighborhood.”

  Yeah, no shit, I think. “I got a flat tire on the freeway and pulled off to fix it.”

  “I see that,” he says, stepping closer. He lifts up the hem of his jersey and repositions it so it’s tucked behind the handle of a knife clipped into an interior side holster. That’s another thing about the gangs in this area: they don’t typically carry guns—they carry machetes.

  “Let’s fix that tire,” Mr. Skull Artwork says. I feel an adrenaline dump of relief. This is like a gag in a sitcom; the scary guys approach, pull their huge machetes… then use the machetes to cut a towel into rags so they can wipe their hands after helping me change the tire, check my oil and top off my wiper fluid.

  “Then all three of us are going for a ride,” he says.

  Mr. Jersey pounces—that’s the only word for it—and takes me by the arms. His fingers dig into the muscle, and I know I’ll have bruises tomorrow morning—and I’m starting to think that living to see tomorrow morning will be very lucky indeed.

  They’re merciless hands, hands that have caused pain, hands that have drawn blood, hands that don’t care.

  He pushes me into the backseat of the car and I stumble, landing face down across the bench seat. I hit my head on the top of the door frame, too, causing a wave of nausea. The plastic seatbelt receptacle pushes against my neck, making it hard to breathe.

  This is it, I think.

  This is why my parents set a 9 p.m. curfew. This is why they insisted I stay home and go to community college after I graduated high school, why they insist I transfer to Cal State Northridge or Pomona and forget about the free ride to Berkeley. This is why they track my iPhone and why they said no to the study-abroad program, why they said no to spring break trips—why they say no to everything.

  They were right about it all. I thought they were nuts and paranoid and domineering, but they are actually wise and cautious. The world is not a nice place. We’re just tricked into thinking it is because we always go to sleep with a full stomach, because we can get antibiotics for a five-dollar copay. Hunger and disease, the two biggest traditional threats to human existence, we’ve mastered them.

  But we can never master the biggest threat to polite society: other humans.

  Mr. Jersey fumbles with his belt, and I hear the wshheet as his machete comes out of the hard plas
tic sheath. He presses the edge to the back of my neck and says, “Hold still. No screaming. We’re gonna fix your tire real quick, then take you back to the jefe. He’ll know what to do with a nice little girl like you. Where’s your phone?”

  Where is my phone? I was looking up videos, using the flashlight. “On the sidewalk?” I say. Whatever defiance I’d worked up from the fight with my parents is long gone. This is where defiance got me.

  I got my acceptance letter from Berkeley a few weeks ago, but without financial aid, going there was a pipe dream. Then today, I got the financial aid letter offering me full tuition, room and board for the two years it will take me to finish up my bachelor’s degree. I earned a transfer student honors program award.

  But my parents still said no. It’s too far away, I’d be living alone, without guidance, without protection. Absolutely not, they said.

  “Well,” I said, “you can’t say no. I’m twenty-one, I don’t need your financial support, you can’t stop me.” That’s what I said, but I know that they can stop me. It’s hard to disobey your parents, even if the law says you don’t have to listen to them anymore.

  They said that if I didn’t appreciate all they’ve done, if I didn’t trust that they wanted what’s best for me, then I could leave.

  So I left.

  I work a part-time job, and I have a savings account. I was gonna get a motel room for the night while things cooled down. I figured that one night of not knowing where I was, realizing that their over-protectiveness had pushed me away, would change their mind.

  But it’s changed my mind. Screw Berkeley. Screw spring break and study abroad and staying out past nine o’clock.

  “Yeah, it’s here,” Mr. Tattoo says. The chime sounds impossibly loud as he powers down my phone. The clank of the metal tools is also louder than the passing traffic, and I wonder if I’ve got supernatural, trauma-induced senses right now, able to sense everything more deeply as the adrenaline is jacked into my system. Sure, it is, I tell myself, and it means you’ll be able to feel that knife blade all the keener, too…

  The car shakes a little as he loosens the lug nuts, lists to one side as he jacks it up, then shakes some more as he swaps the tire and lowers it back down. It took all of three minutes for him to do it. He leaves the busted tire on the sidewalk, along with all my trunk contents and tools.

  Mr. Tattoo gets into the driver’s seat and turns the key. “Take her to the jefe?” he asks.

  “Yeah,” says Mr. Jersey. “All the guys can have some fun tonight. What do you think, girl, you wanna have some fun with the guys tonight?”

  Oh God no, I think. I’d rather they just kill me now and take my car.

  He pulls the car away from the curb, back into the flow of traffic. We barely travel a few yards when there is blinding white light everywhere, filling up the cabin of the car, making it impossible to see anything.

  Is it possible that they did kill me and this is the fabled white light I’m supposed to walk towards?

  Mr. Tattoo gets out of the car, and I hear him shouting. Then laughing.

  Then screaming.

  Chapter 2

  Zav

  Fucking Earth. Such a huge planet with so many inhabitants, in the top ten of population density in the whole known universe, but somehow they remain so backwards. The Federation hasn’t tried to make contact with them because it has been deemed that Earth’s inclusion would only be a burden on the more advanced planets.

  But I’m here in my stealthcraft, patrolling the borders of one of the giant landmasses while a fellow Kenorian warrior is on the ground, trying to find a weapon. It’s odd to think that the mighty Kenorian warriors are looking for a weapon on Earth, but we are. We’re facing battle soon and discovered that a helpful weapon is located here.

  I hover around like an insectoid, my stealth activated so that no Earth detection systems can see me. I’m just here for backup, in case my fellow warrior, Corvi, needs my help with anything. He probably won’t.

  As I fly, I watch the little humans in the cities below. Their buildings are respectable, but their transportations systems are downright despicable. Narrow roads with more ground-bound vehicles than road surface area. It’s a simple equation if you’re using ground-based transport: surface area of roads must exceed combined surface area of average number of traveling vehicles. Simply put, they have more cars than roads. It’s like a portly man trying to squeeze into garments made for a child. Yet the humans do nothing.

  As I’m watching the vehicles below, mindlessly piloting my ship while waiting for Corvi to send a comm letting me know he’s succeeded, I feel a strange sensation in the pit of my stomach. No, not my stomach. Not my chest, either, more like my… core. It’s like hunger, but it’s not. It’s like covetousness, but it’s not. It’s like greed, but it’s not.

  It’s all of those things put together.

  I turn my ship to the right and take it down in elevation as close as I can muster without banging into the humans’ buildings and signposts. There’s something close by. A warrior never ignores his instincts, and mine are going rapid-fire, like a qoroc blaster with excess hydrogen to fuse.

  Something…

  I try to shut down my brain, but it’s hard. I use the deep-breathing techniques we were taught during training, how to purge the mind of everything and listen to the language of the Universe. You have to listen closely because the Universe is quiet. You also have to listen carefully because the Universe never repeats Itself.

  I steer the ship, ignoring the nav-system and coordinates. My arms are not my own; they are a vessel for another force to steer my ship.

  Because something is out there.

  Something that’s meant for me. Something that’s mine.

  I feel the pull stronger and stronger with each passing second. I’m being led—being summoned.

  As suddenly as I felt it, it’s gone.

  I look down and see that one of the humans’ vehicles is pulled off to the side of the road, obviously non-functioning. This is it; this is where I’m supposed to be. A human male gets into the vehicle, starts the engine and pulls it into the road. I have to stop that vehicle. I’m not sure why, but I know enough not to argue when the Unseen Hand of the Universe is at play. I’ve been a warrior all my life and definitely know when to shut up and take orders.

  I switch on my vid-screen and activate the surveillance camera. It’s dark and I can’t see anything, so I enable the night-vision and set the zoom to 10X. And that’s when I see it.

  That’s when I see her.

  My reason for being here—probably the very reason for my existence.

  She’s dazed, that much is obvious, and a second human male is sitting with her, holding a sharpened blade to the back of her neck.

  The Unseen Hand recedes, having done its job of bringing me here, but I still feel as if I’m acting on autopilot. I don’t think about my actions. I lower my ship’s elevation even more, hovering just a few meters above the narrow road. I turn off the stealth cloaking, even though that violates the chief Federation dictate regarding travel to Earth: the Earthlings must never detect your presence.

  These three Earthlings are about to… but it’s quite possible that the two males won’t live to tell the tale.

  I flip the switch to activate my landing lights, three beams that shine at twenty-five thousand kelvin, enough to temporarily blind someone stupid enough to look directly at them. As expected, the vehicle stops immediately. I set my ship to standby and reengage the cloaking mechanism. I have a device that can disguise my true form, projecting an image that makes me appear human. Any traveler to Earth is mandated to use it.

  I leave the device in the ship.

  Because when that female down there first gazes upon me, I want her to see my true form—I do not want my mate to see any falsehoods when she looks into my eyes.

  I know everything now, why I felt the undeniable pull to this location. The Earth female down there is my bonded mate, my arlo jzumak.

  I lift the hatch and jump the three meters down, landing as I was taught, landing as I have the hundreds of other times I’ve jumped from a ship onto foreign soil. I land in a crouch that leaves me ready to spring forth and pounce on my nearest enemy. I charge towards the car and grip the handle of the driver’s door. I pull it open so quickly that the hinges emit a loud scree as they warp under my power.