Mate Abduction (Alien Abduction Book 9) Read online

  Mate Abduction

  An Alien Abduction Story

  Eve Langlais

  Copyright © 2020, Eve Langlais

  Cover Art by Amanda Kelsey © 2020

  Produced in Canada

  Published by Eve Langlais

  http://www.EveLanglais.com

  Digital ISBN: 978 177 384 147 2

  Print ISBN: 978 177 384 148 9

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  Mate Abduction is a work of fiction and the characters, events and dialogue found within the story are of the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, either living or deceased, is completely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or shared in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including but not limited to digital copying, file sharing, audio recording, email and printing without permission in writing from the author.

  ***Originally published in the Loved in Space anthology from March 10, 2020 until April 10th, 2020.

  Contents

  Foreword

  Introduction

  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

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Epilogue

  Also by Eve Langlais

  Foreword

  Please note, this novella was previously published in March of 2020 as part of the Love in Space anthology. It was released on its own in April of 2020 and remains the same story with only one difference. This version contains an Epilogue and a sneak peek at the next two books in this series.

  Happy reading, and remember to wear clean undies because you never know when an alien abduction will occur.

  ~Eve Langlais

  Introduction

  Sometimes love comes with a tail.

  Clarabelle might have been kidnapped from Earth years ago but she never forgot her roots. Her restlessness leads to her embarking on a quest to find a human colony. Instead she encounters an alien dude who insists she’s his mate.

  Ha. As if she’s going to settle down.

  Clarabelle isn’t about to take orders from anyone. Not even the alien hottie who has a disturbing tendency of shifting into a giant lizardman. Her idea of a happily ever after doesn’t include a tail or glowing yellow eyes.

  What will it take for her to accept his love and become his fated mate?

  For more Eve Langlais humor and books see EveLanglais.com

  Looking for more alien romance?

  How about after the apocalypse?

  One

  “You cow, give that back,” Katrina screeched from the common room the women all shared.

  “If you want it, come and get it,” goaded Anne. She’d been picking fights a lot lately. They all had.

  Clarabelle sighed as she stared at her ceiling and the scraps of paper she’d stuck to it. Bits and pieces of posters and images of a world she could barely remember.

  Earth. Her home, until the aliens abducted her and the girls she now called sisters. Seven of them in total. And all of them annoying twats.

  She grimaced as Katrina bellowed, “I am going to make you eat dingus paste if you don’t give it back!”

  “Maybe if you asked nicely,” sweet-spoken Sade tried to interject.

  “You and your be-nice crap!” exclaimed Josee, who’d recently shaved her head and gotten her nose pierced. “Stop it already. Do you know this idiot said, ‘Excuse me’ when she took me down in the ring?”

  “I didn’t want to hurt you,” Sade replied. She hadn’t yet embraced the savage culture they’d been thrust into.

  “You allowed yourself to be distracted, which is why I put you on your ass and then dumped you in the animal trough.”

  Which had been full of foul-smelling slop at the time. Sade had risen from it cursing. Considering she was usually the peacemaker, it proved impressive.

  Everyone’s temper ran short these days, but then again, what could you expect when an active group of young women in their twenties—or so Clarabelle assumed given time passed differently in space—were cooped together in a strange place with alien customs. Literally.

  Say hello to planet Zonia… At least that was the name Clarabelle had given it. She’d heard fancier titles and complicated pronunciations that involved some clicking and, in one case, spit. She stuck to the humanized version in a place that was so strange and never did feel like home.

  Years ago, Clarabelle and the other teenage girls were kidnapped by pirate slavers while on a school trip. Thankfully, they were rescued, and at the time, she’d kind of expected to be sent back to Earth. Wrong!

  Apparently returning abductees to their home worlds went against the rules—making all those humans claiming they’d been taken and probed liars. Forget going home. Instead, Clarabelle and the other girls taken from Earth ended up on Zonia—minus their teacher who, after a dual abduction by purple mercenaries, fell in love and chose to live with her two mates. The teenage girls suffered a culture shock from the moment they landed on the planet ruled by a matriarchal race known as the Zonians. Frightening bitches with a single breast, taloned feet, and rapier gazes. Like a cross between a harpy and Amazon, but meaner.

  Females ruled in this place by might and wit and fists. Education came with bruises but was never done maliciously. It was just the cost of learning. Making mistakes could hurt, so the simple concept was do it right to avoid damage.

  Tough love, but make no mistake, Clarabelle was thankful for everything the Zonians had done. They’d shown her how to be strong. To defend herself. She had a bed, a roof over her head—most of the time—and plenty of food to eat. She had friends. But all those things didn’t curb the yearning for home.

  Or at least a place where people wouldn’t cluck their tongues when she insisted on a private room for doing her business. Somewhere with humans who didn’t think a slap or a bruise was a sign of affection—punch-buggy smacks excepted of course.

  Not that she was abused. Never that. But the Zonians, as a warrior race, lacked gentle manners.

  The thumping and yelling in the other room continued, and Clarabelle finally rose from her bed to stretch. Her gaze fell on the poster of a man. His skin tone was that of a human, a very pale pink, and his teeth were white and flat edged. He didn’t sport a sword or pistol but rather a smile.

  Her fingers traced his features. The very concept of a man remained as ephemeral as a dream. She’d not seen a guy since their arrival. Not a human one at any rate.

  “Ha. Suck it. I win,” Anne crowed, triumphant in their scuffle.

  The claim was followed by noisy tears.

  That snapped Clarabelle out of her reverie, and she stepped from her room to see Anne hugging a sobbing Katrina while Sade wrung her hands.

  The other girls were out doing their assigned chores or training. Day in and out, that was all they did. All they had to look forward to.

  There had to be something more. Something better. Something more like home. But she wouldn’t find it here.

  With that thought in mind, she marched out of the habitat assigned to her and her adopted sisters, her step firm as she mentally prepared a speech. She didn’t allow herself to be distracted as she weaved the hard-packed paths of dirt and crushed bone—because even in death, parts were recycled.

  Out in space, resources were often scarce
and the concept of preservation strong—mostly because the evolved races had learned their lessons a long time ago, unlike the humans supposedly. The stigma that came around dead bodies didn’t exist. Meat was meat. Bone was a great building material. And if she didn’t want her skull to turn into a bowl for soup, she needed to find a way off this world where she could have a normal life.

  With chips.

  She missed chips so badly.

  Arriving at the heavily thatched home of her teacher slash roost mother, she knew better than to go inside. At this time of day, there was only one place Pantariste would be. The garden behind her habitat. Although the word garden was subjective. In some cultures, it meant a place of beautiful foliage, trimmed and bright. On Zonia, it was a graveyard where the sk’uul plants pushed up from the ground, seeded inside the buried entrails of both enemies slain in battle and friends alike.

  Clarabelle caught sight of Pantariste’s bent form as she patted the ground, tamping down the dirt over her newest planting. Her roost mother—a term used for the one overseeing a nest of hatchlings, in this case human ones—never turned her head as Clarabelle approached, but she did snap, “What do want?”

  Forget her hastily prepared speech. Clarabelle blurted out, “I want a spaceship.”

  “Just a spaceship? Greedy child. Making such a lofty demand. Perhaps you’d like a moon to go with it?” was the sarcastic retort. “Mayhap a few stars?”

  Clarabelle knew better than to cower and retract her words. “Now you’re just being silly. I just need a ship capable of faster than light speed.”

  They had all kinds of fancy terms in space for how fast spaceships travelled. Warp, slide, jump, whatever. She just knew it got people from point A to B with sometimes an odd stop at an alternate universe C.

  “Just a ship, caw?” Pantariste pretended to muse over the request, and Clarabelle held her breath. “Despite your annoying way of asking, it turns out I have a vessel docked in the cavern.”

  The cavern being their version of a spaceport, hidden from eyes in the sky. There were a few of them scattered around, linked by tunnels and traps for the unwary who thought they could come and dominate the planet and its inhabitants.

  Not that anyone dared, a fact often lamented by the Zonians. Their reputation preceded them.

  “Can I have the ship?” Clarabelle asked.

  “I wouldn’t have mentioned it if you couldn’t.”

  She blinked. It seemed a bit too easy. “Aren’t you going to ask me why I need it?”

  Pantariste uttered a noise and waved a taloned hand. “I’d say it’s obvious. You and the other human orphans aren’t content.”

  True and yet Clarabelle hastened to say, “We are grateful for everything—”

  Her roost mother cut her off. “You jabber about things I already know. Of course, you are grateful. But unhappy. Understandable given you’ve entered your fertile season. It’s natural for you to seek others of your kind, males more specifically, to dominate.”

  “Um, find people yes, but I don’t care if they’re male or not.” A tiny white lie. She wouldn’t mind the rumble of a deep voice. She’d been sixteen when she was abducted, and not exactly innocent. Years of only girls for company had left her yearning for something more.

  “You should care. How will you procreate and continue your line without proper males?”

  With the Zonians, it was all about the family and ensuring their legacy lived on. For the human girls, though, that was an impossible dream, as Zonian males weren’t exactly anatomically compatible.

  Not to mention the competition to claim one could be fierce. A human, even a well-trained one, would struggle against a pure blood Zonian in the mating heat.

  “Not all of us want to make babies,” she grumbled.

  The idea of a grubby mini person demanding her attention did not appeal. However, in the same stroke, she knew some of her friends were hoping to one day have a family.

  “But the making of them is so enjoyable.” Pantariste’s beak spread in a lascivious smile. “If it is just coital pleasure you seek, then we could arrange something with the Kulin. They’re almost decent warriors. I could speak to Aylia about an exchange.”

  Aylia was another human. Older than Clarabelle and her sisters, she’d been living with the Zonians since she was much younger than they had been on arrival. She’d gone off planet to find a baby daddy and ended up shacking up with him on some planet with a pretty ocean. Even Louisa, the only adult kidnapped with them, had decided to put her future and love in the hands of a pair of bumbling purple idiots.

  Two guys, one girl. A decadent alien thing. Clarabelle wasn’t greedy, she’d be content with one fellow, but to find one she needed that ship, which meant saying no to Pantariste’s offer to import some dick.

  “Don’t even mention the Kulin.” Clarabelle’s nose wrinkled. “I hate the color purple, and they’re kind of controlling.”

  Then there was the fact their sharply filed teeth scared the piss out of her. What if in the throes of passion the purple dude ripped out her throat? She hated that her mind saw them as so different. But she couldn’t help it. She’d not been raised to see aliens as potential boyfriends. She had a hard time imagining herself with someone so different.

  “If they are insolent, then you beat it out of them.” Pantariste rolled her eyes and clacked her beak.

  “Or maybe, instead, I could find a colony with a bunch of guys. Maybe even human guys,” she added quickly. Without the extra parts or, in the case of the Kulin, missing balls. Was it really asking for much to have a boyfriend with teeth not meant for puncturing or fingers that didn’t end in claws? No tentacles or tails either, just a nice, normal, guy.

  “I know of no such place.” Quick and dismissive.

  “You haven’t even looked,” Clarabelle exclaimed.

  “It is not my task to complete.”

  “You’re right; it’s not your task but mine. There has to be somewhere I can find more of my kind.” If she and her sisters ended up Zonia, who was to say other abductees hadn’t clustered in another place?

  “As far as I know, the only other humans are on your origin planet, and visiting that galaxy is forbidden.” Because the Zonians were big on following the rules. Meaning no going home to Earth.

  Hearing it again didn’t make it easier than the first time. They’d been warned at a young age they could never return. The orphans had seen too much, learned about the wider universe and its many inhabitants. Earth, with its protected status and easily panicked populace, wasn’t ready for the truth.

  “I know the rules. I wasn’t planning to go there.” Not at first. She’d have to be sly about her return, or the galactic cops would go after her. “There has to be somewhere else with humans. We can’t be the only ones out here.”

  Given the abductions over the centuries, and the way humanity had of multiplying, it seemed logical there’d be a location where they’d flourished. Even if there wasn’t, she wanted to get off this planet. Wanted... something. She’d know it when she found it.

  Apparently Pantariste’s seeming acquiescence was but a sham, as she began to hammer Clarabelle. “And if there isn’t a place? What if you cannot find others like yourself? Or let’s say you do find a male, maybe even a few? What if there aren’t enough for all of you? What then?”

  “Then we keep looking for more. The universe is huge.” She waved a hand.

  “It is, and your kind are rare and fragile. The chance of success is slim.”

  “I know that, and yet I won’t give up hope.”

  “Never said you should, but there is more than one kind of male compatible with your race.” Pantariste once again reminded her that there were purple dudes and even blue ones that could do the trick.

  But Clarabelle wasn’t interested in dating a Smurf.

  “Human or not, it doesn’t matter. The fact is there is no one here on Zonia for us. We have to leave to find boyfriends.”

  “The universe can be h
arsh.”

  “So can I.” Clarabelle lifted her chin. “Besides, isn’t it you who taught me to fight for what I want?”

  “Since when do you obey your lessons?”

  A reminder that Clarabelle had been a hard student to teach, stubborn and not only because of her red hair. She’d railed against their strange new life even as she adapted quickly to it. A part of her enjoyed the sparring and the camaraderie that came with living amongst the Zonians.

  But she also missed Earth with its colorful fashions and French fries. She craved a burger and dance music loud enough to make her body vibrate. And of late, she missed the shy hand holding and hot kisses in the back of a car where the windows steamed.

  “I have to do this. I can’t stay here.” Or she’d be the one picking fights with her orphan sisters and sobbing for no reason.

  “Very well. You have my permission.”

  As Clarabelle opened her mouth to argue, her brain clued in. “Wait. You mean I can go?”

  “Of course. I was merely questioning you to ensure the purity of your purpose. You will depart immediately. The ship you’ll be taking is already fully stocked with supplies for your journey.”

  “How did you know to get it ready? What if I didn’t pass your test?”

  “I know you. And your sisters. It’s time for you to fly the nest.” Pantariste cackled. “Although it took you long enough to ask. Aylia was younger than you when she went questing.”

  Probably because Aylia was raised to think she needed to get preggers.

  “Does it have auto pilot?” Because now that she’d gotten the ship, a problem arose. She didn’t know how to drive one.