Alien Romance: The Alien's Pregnant Mate: Scifi Alien Abduction Romance (Alien Romance, Alien Invasion Romance, BBW) (Celestial Mates Book 2) (10 page)

"I never wanted you to know about that part of me," Shang explained, unable to meet her eye as he told her about his past, "After I'd seen what I was responsible for- the carnage on that planet- the only way I could live with it was just to stop caring about anything or anyone.

I convinced myself that no one mattered but me. All other lives were meaningless. And when you don't care about other lives, piracy is easy. I killed and stole and left people to starve and told myself that none of it mattered.

I watched hundreds of women cross that stage I met you on and none of it touched me. And then I saw you, staring at me with those eyes. It felt like they stared straight through me, right through all the lies I'd told myself. When you looked at me, I could feel the guilt of all those lives crushing me again."

He looked up at her, more vulnerable than she'd ever seen him, and felt her own heart quake in response, echoing his words. She'd felt the same thing when she'd seen him. The way his eyes had seen right through her and laid her bare.

"There's a story my mother once told me about our species," he continued, reaching out to take her hand,

"About how we were made in pairs, always destined to find each other. She said I'd recognize my Amorent, my soul mate, the minute I saw her. I never believed in it then, but- Erena, I think you're my Amorent. I'd be willing to bet everything on it."

"Then why were you willing to take me back to Earth?" Erena asked, dazzled, "Even when you thought I hated you?"

"I couldn't risk you getting hurt," he answered, staring back at her with deep, dark eyes, "Even if it meant I never saw you again, as long as I knew you were safe, that would be enough.

I was scared of falling in love with you, scared of admitting how much you meant to me. Admitting I loved you meant letting go of all those years pretending nothing mattered. I thought I could just take you back to Earth and forget. But now..."

He reached out to put a hand on her stomach and Erena shivered at his touch.

"I won't abandon you," he promised solemnly, "Either of you. I know what it's like, growing up alone, the only one of your kind. I won't let that happen to my own kid. So please-"

He squeezed her hand, leaning closer to her.

"Let me stay with you."

Erena's heart was racing in her chest as he leaned in to kiss her, her emotions overwhelming her. She didn't know if she believed in soul mates or Amorents, but she couldn't pretend she had no feelings at all for him anymore.

Thinking he had betrayed her had hurt her so badly she couldn't think straight. Whether she loved him she still wasn't sure. She hadn't known him long and they'd met in such a terrible way. But neither did she have it in her to turn him away.

She leaned in to meet him, her eyes closing as she felt the warmth of his lips against her own- Only to be abruptly interrupted by distant boom that sent tremors through the hull around them. Shang stood up at once, standing over Erena protectively.

"That was a laser canon," Shang said, a moment before an alarm began blaring overhead, "We're under attack."

"Again?" Erena jumped to her feet, rushing out of the cabin and up to the bridge.

"Is it the stellar police?" Erena asked as she crashed onto the bridge, seeing her crew, sans Paolo who had stayed down in engineering, was already there.

"Worse!" Davina shouted back to her as she stood at the helm, all her tentacles at work on the console, "It's pirates!"

"That's the bug's flagship," Shang stared out the wide view screen at the huge chitinous ship firing at them, "It's Rin'rokir. He must have tracked us. You need to move the ship, now!"

"I'm trying," Davina yelled back, "If I can get him on my right I can hit him with the broadsides!"

"No! You need to get out of this spot!" Shang corrected her, "Rokir has more than one ship! He's about to flank you!"

No sooner had he said this than the ships alarms began shrieking, alerting them to another ship closing in. But Davina was already moving, disengaging from the flag ship and rolling away, evading the second two ships closing in on them from behind. The second two were only slightly smaller than the flag ship.

"How many guns does this thing have?" Sergei asked, gripping the back of Davina's chair as he stared at the ships in front of them.

"Not enough to take on three ships that size!" Davina answered, "We've got turrets on the front and back and laser canons on the sides, but they'll blow us out of the water before we can get one of them in our sights."

"So we run!" Fin offered, "Get us out of here!"

"We're faster, but we won't be able to outrun them for long," Davina clutched the console in distress.

"We don't need to outrun them long," Erena said, looking over Davina's shoulder at the star charts she had open, "Look there at that nebula. If we make it there we can hide in the gas clouds. The radiation should hide us, right? They'll lose their advantage!"

"That might work!" Davina replied, already beginning to turn the ship, "It'll give us a better chance anyway!"

Davina pitched the ship away from their enemies and floored it, moving as close to near light as she dared, shouting orders down to Paulo in engineering as they dodged laser blasts from the three ships following them.

"Hellfire," Fin shouted as another blast connected, shaking the ship, "What did you do to piss these guys off?"

"Threw him off a balcony for one," Erena answered.

"I may have made the situation a little worse while you were recovering," Shang admitted, "He used to have five ships, not three, for one. And also-"

"He's trying to reach our coms," Davina reported, "I'll put him on the view screen."

A window opened in the corner of the screen. Rin'rokir stood there, missing one of his mandibles, his eyes burning with rage.

"Looking good, bug," Shang snarled as soon as he saw the other alien, "The asymmetric thing suits you."

"Ren’ai Shang I am going to tear your limbs off eat them in front of you," Rokir shrieked and chittered, drooling from his shattered mouth, "I am going to lay my eggs in that pet of yours while you watch!

A police dog like you, a gutter crawling terminarch, never should have been allowed to climb as high as you did!

I should have squashed you the first moment I saw you on that ship! If the captain hadn't favored, you I would have eaten you that day! But I'm the captain now, and nothing it going to stop me from digesting you like the worthless scrap of meat you are!"

Davina turned the com off before he could continue.

"I think that's more than enough," she declared, "What a creep."

"How close is the nebula?" Erena asked, a little shaken by Rin'rokir's threats.

"Almost there," Davina confirmed, "And we've put a little distance between us as well. This just might work!"

The ship shot into the astral cloud, the stardust billowing and rippling around it as it darted deep into the nebula, seeking out a place it could hide from the pursuing ships.

"They've followed us into the cloud," Davina reported as the image of the other ship vanished from her radar, "They can't see us, and we can't see them."

"Not quite," Shang corrected, "We have one advantage they don't."

He reached into his pocket, pulling out Rokir's detached mandible.

"You kept that?" Erena asked, wrinkling her nose

"I thought it might come in handy," he said, grinning, "This ship specializes in poaching. Snatching up rare or new species to sell as novelties. So it's outfitted with DNA tracking equipment. Most ships don't have that. With this sample of his DNA, we can track him in the cloud."

"Excellent," Davina's tendrils moved cautiously over the console as they drifted through the cloud, worried at any moment that they might stumble across Rokir's ships, "The only problem is I don't know how to work the DNA tracker. I never approved of that work. It's half the reason I wanted the old captain gone."

"I can work it," Shang said, taking the mandible to an open console and laying it down in an open circle on the dash, "You just fly. I'll get you the information you need."

"I can handle the guns," Sergei offered, "Just point me at them."

"There and there," Davina said, pointing in two different directions, "That side is turrets. The other is broadsides. Technically, you can man both from either station, but none of you has enough limbs for that."

"I'll take the turrets," Erena said, rushing to one of the stations while Sergei hurried to the other, leaving Fin the only one without a job.

"What should I do?" he asked, agitated.

"You're a medical officer aren't you?" Shang replied, "If any of us goes down, don't let us die!"

The controls were not what Erena expected, but she figured them out quickly enough. Just touching the console seemed to transmit some basic knowledge of the weapons operations directly into her brain. She could see what Davina meant about not having enough limbs. Thinking about it, two was really inefficient.

By the time she was sure she knew what she was doing, Shang had figured out where Rokir's ship was.

"This'll only give us the location of his flag ship," Shang called out, "So keep your eyes peeled for the other two. They won't be very far apart. They won't want to lose each other in this cloud."

"Get ready!" Davina called, "Fire broadsides!"

Erena watched, her stomach aching with tension, as the laser canons fired into the spinning magenta clouds, lighting them up gold as they cut through the stardust.

For a moment there was nothing, and Erena wondered if they'd hit the target. Then suddenly the inside of the cloud was illuminated as though by lightning and Erena saw the dark silhouette of Rin'rokir's ship burning within the vibrant nimbus of the nebula.

"Direct hit!" Davina cheered.

"He's moving this way, get us out of here!" Shang called back to her.

"I'm bringing her around," Davina replied, "Prepare to fire again! Now!"

Erena and Sergei both bent over their consoles, pale with concentration as lasers lit up the nebula in great clashes of color. Rokir fired back at them whenever they exposed their position by firing at him, keeping them in a constant game of cat and mouse, firing and darting away before he could locate them. Erena flinched every time the ship shuddered with another impact.

"Davina!" Paolo's voice echoed through the coms from engineering, "Things are beginning to look dire down here my love!"

"We've almost got him!" Davina crowed, "I don't even need the DNA tracker any more, he's smoking badly enough to see it through the clouds! Hang in there a little longer, gorgeous!"

Suddenly another shot rocked the ship hard enough to make Erena shriek in surprise.

"That was a canon!" Davina gasped, "How did he target us?"

"Where are the other two ships?" Erena asked, scanning the view screen before them frantically.

"There!" Sergei pointed out, "Behind us!"

"They're just firing turrets into the void," Fin noticed, "Why?"

"He's using it to triangulate us!" Shang realized, horrified, "He lured us right into the middle of his ships!"

A second later, two more canon blasts hit the ship, shaking it until Erena was certain it would fly to pieces. Shrill alarms screamed, reporting the damage.

"The lower decks are venting atmosphere!" Davina reported, "They've torn her belly open! Another few shots will gut her!"

"We can't go down like this!" Shang demanded, "There has to be a way out! He's right in front of us!"

"Ram him!" Erena said, desperation making her voice shake, "He's more damage than we are, and this thing is shaped like an anvil. Ram him!"

"We'll destroy both of us!" Shang stared at her, wide eyed.

"Better both of us than just him!" Davina howled with mad laughter and threw the ship into full near light all at once, charging directly forward. Shang threw himself across the bridge to get to Erena's side a second before the point of the ship's anvil drove directly through the heart of Rin'rokir's ship like a sword.

There were a few moments of silence, during which Erena tried to gather her scattered thoughts. It was dark, and her head hurt. There was a ringing in her ears, high and whining, that kept getting louder her. There were arms around her, strong and protective.

The lights flickered back to life as Erena's hearing returned gradually, revealing the shrill ringing as the sound of blaring alarms. A red emergency light was flashing on and off. The consoles were sparking and there was a fire in the corner. No one was on their feet.

And Shang was holding her, sheltering her with his body. She reached up to touch his face, worry blossoming in her chest, and he groaned, shifting into the contact. She sighed in relief.

"Shang, wake up," she said, shaking his shoulders, "We need to move. Come on."

He opened his eyes slowly, unsteady.

"Are you okay?" she asked, worried, "Are you hurt?"

He shook his head, looking down over her nervously.

"Are you okay?" he asked, "The baby?"

"I knocked my head, but I think we're okay."

"You're pregnant?"

Davina interrupted their conversation, stumbling to her feet behind the center console, holding her head.

"That explains a lot," she muttered, "Damn. That was a hell of a ride. Everybody okay?"

"Davina!"

Paolo burst onto the bridge, bleeding from a cut above his eye and looking terrified. As soon as he saw Davina standing he threw himself at her, hugging her tightly. Davina looked a bit startled at first, then embraced him as well, her expression softening with affection.

"Sergei is still unconscious," Fin, his face lined with worry, was leaning over the other man, checking his pulse, "He needs medical attention."

"We need to get off this ship first," Shang said, eyeing the sparking consoles, "I've got a feeling it's not going to be in flyable condition for a while, and there's still two other ships out there to worry about.

"Damn it," Davina muttered, "I was really looking forward to taking over this ship."

She leaned over to the coms, slapping the console until it lit up.

"All hands to the life boats," she called, her voice echoing through the corridors, "Abandon ship!"

"To the hanger," Shang said, standing and pulling Erena up with him, "We can take my ship. It's got DNA tracking, so we can still get to earth. A little slower maybe, but we can make it."

"Good plan," Davina agreed, "Let's go."

Paolo helped Fin pick up Sergei and together the six of them hurried through the burning corridors of the massive ship towards the hangar. Around them, the other crew men were rushing into life pods that lined the corridors, which would automatically shuttle them to the nearest inhabited planet.

"There it is!" Erena said with a sigh of relief as their battered group reached the hangar and she spotted the sleek black ship, still in one piece despite the damage they'd passed on the way here.

They hurried towards it, eager to get off the smoking wreck, only to stop short as a dark figure stepped out from behind the ship.

Rin'rokir, missing much more than a mandible, stood panting, dripping cerulean ichor on the hangar floor. Erena's stomach turned at the sight of him, missing a distressingly large chunk of his torso as well as his left arm. None of which seemed to be stopping him from pointing a laser rifle at them.

"Do you have," he gasped, sputtering blood between every few words, "any idea, how long it's going to take me to regrow all this? I'm going to be chewing on your bones while I'm molting, Shang."

"I think you're misreading the situation, bug," Shang growled as he and Davina both pulled small, sleek pistols from their coats, "You're not ever going to have another molt."

"Then I'm at least taking something you care about with me," Rokir snarled and jerked his rifle towards Erena, pulling the trigger.

Shang stepped into the path of the blast before Erena even had time to process what was happening. She saw him go down in slow motion while Davina opened fire on Rokir, forcing him to take cover behind the ship. She went down with him, barely aware of her companions ducking rifle fire above her.

There was a burning hole in Shang and he wasn't moving. Shock was giving way in Erena to a molten rage like boil rising in her throat behind a scream. She was taking the pistol he'd dropped before she'd had a second thought, charging the ship he'd taken cover behind so suddenly that her team had no chance to react. She caught Rin'rokir off guard too.

Compound eyes wide he raised his rifle too slow. She slammed one hand down on the burning barrel of that gun to shove it down and pressed the pistol to the bug's head with the other.

Inches from his face, her teeth bared like an animal, she didn't hesitate before she pulled the trigger. She pulled it five more times before she dropped it and picked up the rifle to shoot the puddle Rokir was swiftly becoming.

Paolo wrestled the weapon out of her hands before she could get more than a few shots in, Davina struggling to hold her back. She spat on the insect's corpse and aimed a kick at him as she was pulled away.

"Come back from that one, creep!"