Alien Breeder’s Claim: A Scifi Alien Romance Read online

  Kayal

  I knew it wasn’t going to be a good day.

  I knew it from the moment I glanced out the window as I sailed through Earth’s atmosphere.

  The clouds were a dull grey, and in the distance, flashes of lightning and thunder nipping at its heels.

  Every time something bad happened in my life, it happened during a thunderstorm.

  But they weren’t always domestic storms on a planet’s surface, but solar storms that operated in space.

  Each time they happened, the direction of my life changed dramatically.

  Today would be no different if, as I expected, I would locate my fated mate.

  I sat my ship down on a small clearing of grass in an otherwise built-up section of the city.

  It’d been a long journey and I was in no mood to waste time now.

  I marched outside without even considering the weather.

  My mind was somewhere else.

  I was halfway to the pulsing beacon of my fated mate’s location before I realized I was soaked through.

  It was only water.

  It didn’t matter.

  What mattered was my recollection of the first major storm I saw as a child.

  It was a solar storm, a rare event on my home planet.

  At least, I thought it was.

  I’d been removed from it from a tender age and couldn’t recall what the cyclical events were like.

  But I did remember that storm.

  The bolts of savage purple lightning never made landfall but lit up the sky in nature’s greatest firework display.

  Cords of angry pink and yellow trailed the lightning.

  I was no older than five years old, precocious, and clutching my mother’s hand, my face pressed to the thin folds of her green cardigan.

  I’d been a shy child, rarely opening up to strangers.

  The Shadow military training soon hammered that out of me.

  It was the only way to survive it.

  The storm erupted for five whole days and I recalled celebrating it with dancing, food, and drink.

  The storm was said to symbolize a major turning point in our species’ history.

  Sometimes it was for the better, sometimes for the worse.

  In this case, it was for the worse, not that we were to know that just yet.

  But we soon would.

  As the storm dissipated, blowing itself out after five days of activity, a new and forbidding force appeared.

  The Shadow.

  Thousands of alien vehicles descended.

  They brutalized us, forcing the adults into slave labor, the children into military training camps.

  Each soul was harvested for a single purpose:

  To join the Shadow Empire and make them an even more formidable force.

  It was a dark day in our history.

  Perhaps the darkest, because on many levels it was the end of our civilization.

  We were adopted, unwillingly, into the Shadow Empire.

  Occasionally, during fitful nights when the blissful darkness of sleep refused to visit me, I thought back to those moments.

  I found myself on the farm, in those final few days before the dark curtain descended on us.

  Those moments of happiness and celebration were a total contrast to what happened immediately afterward.

  It twisted every happy moment, making it dark and sinister.

  Poisoning it.

  I sometimes remembered things I’d long since forgotten, whispered secrets that I never shared with anybody.

  Odd things, like a strong stranger turning up at our farm one day alongside a female alien that I’d had a crush on even at that young age.

  But their features were lost to me.

  Only their influence remained.

  Their names were Froah and Nem.

  Froah and Nem.

  They were kind, good people.

  They helped my parents bring in the harvest in exchange for food and board.

  I had always felt comfortable around them.

  Funny considering they were complete strangers.

  I followed the pulsing light in my chest, a beacon much like a tracking system attached to an enemy vessel.

  It was a part of my military training many others had failed.

  Not every species assimilated by the Shadow shared their fated mate bond.

  But the Qyah were one of them.

  We were born linked to a creature somewhere in the galaxy, much the same as a natural-born Shadow.

  And still, as I was not a native Shadow, I was regarded as a second-class citizen.

  My fated mate was my ticket to first class.

  I would be provided with better living accommodation and access to my mate anytime I wished.

  I had crossed half the galaxy and crossed into an adjacent dimension to reach her.

  My fated mate.

  And once I had her, I would take her back to the Citadel.

  There, she would be bred, claimed first by me, and then taken by other members of the Shadow Empire.

  She would be used to breed more Shadows, making the Empire ever stronger.

  It was a duty and an honor, and every fated mate should be pleased to carry it out.

  There was only one wrinkle, and that was my opposite, birthed in this galaxy.

  He was my twin but in all the ways I was dark, he was light.

  Some say we shared a common ancestor and, unable to overcome the warring halves of their psyche, were forced to split in half.

  One half in the light, the other in the dark.

  The M’rora resided in this galaxy and we hunted for the same fated mate.

  His mission was similar to mine, only he would take her back to his Citadel and exclusively mate with her in a ceremony called a “wedding.”

  It was my job to ensure that didn’t happen.

  I turned a corner and drew up to a large building with glass walls and a sloped dome roof.

  Light classical music drifted out from the door as it swung back and forth.

  Soft light blossomed from inside, making it look very appealing.

  I checked the streets, looking for the enemy I knew was either there already or soon would be.

  Content he wasn’t watching me, I shoved the door open and stepped inside.

  I scanned the room, peering at each face one by one, searching for any sign of my M’rora twin.

  Only once I was certain the coast was clear, did I find her.

  She sat with her friend at a nearby table.

  They both looked over at me, and that pulse in the center of my chest quickened along with the throbbing rhythm of my heart.

  I raised a hand and placed it on the front breast pocket of my jacket.

  I’d performed the movement so many times over the years that it happened unconsciously.

  I relaxed and felt at ease, drawing from that little item in my pocket.

  Peering into her eyes, I sensed I could see into her very soul.

  My body shivered, quivering with curiosity.

  Despite the training we received, you could never really know what this moment would feel like until you came face to face with it.

  I approached an empty table, sat down, and continued staring at her.

  Objectively speaking, she was pretty enough, with long brown hair and big eyes the irises of which glinted the color of remnark dark wood.

  Her skin was pale and she wore a comfortable-looking but unflattering item of clothing that concealed whatever figure she may have underneath it.

  Her eyes were red-rimmed and raw, her hair disheveled and dirty.

  Not exactly the first impression I wished to have of my fated mate.

  But her appearance was of little consequence.

  The only thing that mattered was her ability to reproduce.

  I approached the counter to buy a cup of coffee.

  The hot drink smelled good, vaguely reminding me of squirnatch dirt after it’d been soaked in jirax blo
od.

  That marked the successful assimilation of another alien species into the Shadow’s fold.

  But that time, I had been part of the attacking force.

  Few could stand against the Shadow.

  In fact, it was only our twins, the M’rora who could.

  They were as strong as us but with our vigorous breeding programs, we would soon tip the balance of power in our favor and dominate not just our universe, but theirs too.

  I peered at the menu above the counter.

  The translation device embedded in my arm turned the words into meaning.

  Someone coughed, clearing their throat behind me.

  Disgusting species.

  Why my fated mate had to be one of them, I would never understand.

  There were far better species for providing strong offspring.

  But the bond was an unknown thing and we obeyed it with every breath in our bodies.

  The person behind me cleared their throat again and I turned to glare at them.

  My expression froze as I took in my fated mate up close.

  I blinked in surprise, at her having crept up on me without me noticing.

  My mind had wandered again.

  I needed to stay focused, otherwise the M’rora could end up sneaking up on me just as easily.

  My fated mate gnawed at her bottom lip and shifted her weight from foot to foot.

  “Um, hi.”

  It suddenly struck me how inefficient our training had been.

  We trained to track down our mates but we had very little training when it came to interacting with them.

  Perhaps it had been done on purpose.

  Developing an emotional connection with the breeder was frowned upon and not encouraged.

  “Hi,” I said back to her.

  “You’re soaked. If you ask the workers, they might have a towel to give you.”

  I peered at my clothes.

  I’d forgotten about that.

  “Thank you. I will.”

  My mate glanced in either direction, searching for something to talk about.

  “Do you, uh, come here often?”

  “This is my first time.”

  She nodded and peered over her shoulder at her friend.

  The friend nodded and waved a hand for her to continue.

  Were they playing some kind of game on me? I wondered.

  My senses went on high alert.

  The instant they did, her scent struck me full in the face.

  It was a powerful scent that crept over me now, taking control of my reason.

  I shook my head of its claws and focused on her.

  “Are you meeting someone here?” she said.

  “In a way, yes.”

  Her shoulders slumped a little and she tore her eyes from mine.

  “Oh. Okay. I thought so.”

  I cocked my head to one side.

  “What did you think?”

  “That you were meeting someone.”

  Why did I get the feeling she was bitterly disappointed?

  Had I insulted her somehow?

  Damn backward species!

  “Would you like something to drink?” I said.

  She thought about the question and nodded.

  “Sure. Why not?”

  “Next!” the worker behind the counter said.

  He was a weedy-looking creature with a long face and wore a wimpy green apron.

  He would have been murdered at the very first round of the Shadow’s training program.

  What sort of effeminate race was this?

  “What can I get you?” he said brightly, his smile faltering beneath my glare.

  When I said nothing, the girl stepped forward.

  “Caramel macchiato for me. And don’t skimp on the caramel.”

  Then the effeminate man looked at me, clearly afraid.

  “Regular coffee. Black.”

  “That’s seven dollars fifty, please,” the worker said.

  I reached into my pocket and extracted a bundle of paper.

  I handed it to the worker and his eyes bulged.

  He slipped one of the notes free and handed the rest to me.

  Then he handed me some round metal coins.

  I peered at them in the palm of my hand.

  They still use ore to trade with?

  I sneered at the worker.

  “Please wait at the kiosk and your coffee will be with you shortly,” the worker said.

  He looked grateful as he turned to the next customer.

  The girl shuffled to one side and I followed her.

  As she moved, the band of her heavy item of clothing drew tight over her ass.

  It was pleasing and round, and for a moment, I considered slapping it.

  It was how many treated their fated mates after they had become breeders.

  But this was a new world, a new culture.

  I didn’t want to make things more difficult than necessary.

  If I carried her out of the shop under my arm, would anyone take notice?

  Would they try to stop me?

  We stood side by side and I wondered how I would go about kidnapping her.

  The place was crowded and I had no idea what the technology level of this species was.

  Judging by what I’d seen so far, very low.

  I needed to get her alone, I decided.

  Then I could hustle her onto my ship and begin the journey back to the Shadow Realm before the M’rora arrived.

  Then I noticed movement out the corner of my eye.

  “Your friend is trying to communicate with you,” I said.

  The girl peered over at her and waved back.

  Perhaps these creatures were so backward they communicated with physical signals.

  Damn backward species!

  “She’s just…” the girl began before looking up at me, and her eyes shifted away again.

  “She suggested I should come and talk with you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I just split up with my boyfriend. Well, friend.”

  Boyfriend?

  A shiver twisted the pit of my stomach as if I had passed through the eye of a black hole.

  I felt sick.

  Why should she dating an inferior species concern me?

  “She wanted me to get over him quickly so she suggested I come talk to you, see if you’re single. But you’re not, so that’s it.”

  “I am single.”

  Her eyes snapped up to mine.

  And it was the first time I got a good clear view of her face.

  I was taken aback, suddenly surprised by her beauty.

  Yes, her eyes were red and the tracks of her tears made furrows down her cheeks, but she was still beautiful, not merely pretty.

  There was a strength in her eyes, something that foretold of confidence and stamina.

  “What do you mean?” she said. “You said you were meeting someone.”

  “I am.”

  “A friend?”

  “Not yet a friend, but I hope we will become more than that with time.”

  “Then who? A date?”

  “You could say that. Although, she doesn’t know it yet.”

  My head didn’t know what to say, but my instincts apparently did.

  I reached for her hand.

  It was mostly covered by the sleeve of her baggy clothing.

  I placed my other hand on top of it and looked her dead in the eye.

  “You. I am here to meet you.”

  Her face fell and I could feel her pulse quicken.

  Her arm tensed as if she wanted to pull her hand from mine, but she didn’t.

  She peered back at me, meeting my eyes the way no opponent in the past had ever managed to do.

  Oh yes, she was a courageous little thing, all right.

  Over her shoulder I noticed her friend motioning to her, jabbing a fist with her thumb sticking up.

  My mate didn’t notice it.

  She was still
staring at me.

  “Have we… met before?”

  A look of curiosity crossed her face.

  I was taken aback by her insight.

  “No. Why?”

  “I get the feeling we have at some point.”

  It must be the bond, I thought.

  It was a miraculous and mysterious thing.

  “You don’t even know my name,” she said.

  “Then tell me.”

  “Ava. She said. Ava Green.”

  “I’m Kayal.”

  She cocked her head to one side.

  “Is it foreign?”

  “More foreign than you realize. But it won’t be for long.”

  She smiled at me and a smoky look overcame her face.

  “I hope so.”

  I ground my teeth and growled at the back of my throat.

  Mating with this creature was going to be more fun than I thought…

  Then her attention shifted.

  Over my shoulder and in the direction of the door.

  My eyes followed hers.

  I stared openly at the figure standing in the doorway, rain dripping from his shoulder-length hair, his eyes golden and blinking at me.

  My exact opposite.

  My twin born in the light.

  The M’rora.

  His eyes widened at seeing me there and then focused, turning angry at the sight of my hands wrapped over our fated mate’s.

  He reached into his jacket and came out with his blaster pistol.

  Ava

  My eyes flicked over to the new arrival and then double took.

  I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

  I gawped at what had to be Kayal’s twin.

  I could hardly breathe.

  It was hard enough to believe there was one gorgeous creature like him, never mind two!

  Twins.

  And they both produced the same effect on my body.

  Insane, strong, and overpowering.

  Just as when Kayal had taken my hand and peered into my eyes and said I was who he had come to this coffee shop to meet, I knew it was a seminal event.

  It wasn’t just words.

  It was—and this was going to sound hokey—it was destiny.

  It was in his flashing golden eyes and the grin on his face.

  I felt Kayal knew that too.

  Now it happened again when I laid eyes on this new arrival.

  I saw my surprise reflected in his twin’s eyes.

  When he slid his hand into his jacket, I thought he was reaching for his wallet.

  And when the object he drew out emerged, it took a moment for me to acknowledge what it was.