GalacticInferno (7 page)

Breath rasping, Ally fumbled for the door handle. It didn’t
budge. Bloody. Fucking. Hell.

She twisted to face the dogs, scanning desperately for a
weapon—anything. Bonnie stood her ground, hackles standing on end and her teeth
bared as she growled.

The big tan dog in front revealed bloodied canines, his top
lip curling high. Oh, shit. This was undoubtedly the dog that’d attacked her.
And by the way he stalked forward and the others fell back at his flanks, he
was the alpha male, the top dog.

She’d need to take him out first. Lop the head off the
dragon. If only she had something to defend herself with aside from her bare
hands.

The lead dog suddenly leaped, hitting her chest and knocking
her to the ground. As another two dogs fell on Bonnie, Ally pulled her knees up
to her chest and kicked out hard. One of her feet connected to the alpha’s
thick snout, the other on his barrel chest. He let out an irate yelp, slamming
into another one of his pack members.

She glanced over at Bonnie. Her dog labored under the double
attack and was struggling to stay on her feet. Bloody hell. She sucked in a
desperate breath. The dogs were taking out Bonnie so the alpha could dispatch
Ally without any outside threats.

It was human meat these animals craved.

She moved backward, slipping in something wet. She looked
down. And froze. Blood, and lots of it.

Hers?

Everything abruptly spun around her. She battled not to pass
out, not to give in. And didn’t even see the alpha dog until he bit deep into
her thigh. She screamed at the piercing pain. The dog shook his head, shredding
right through her jeans and savaging her flesh.

She struggled, growing weaker and more ineffectual by the
second. But somehow she took absurd comfort in the fact she’d gone numb to any
pain.

Gunshot boomed, much closer this time. Or was she dreaming?
Then she heard Renate’s frantic shout. “Ally!”

Everything blurred and her eyes fluttered closed. Her lips
tilted into a half-smile.

Renate was alive.

Chapter Six

Sounds infiltrated Ally’s consciousness. The murmur of
voices. The soft tread of someone moving around. Strange scents filled her
sinuses. Rich earth and something sharper, more pungent. Foreign. She moved a
little, aware of something extremely soft beneath her spine.

“She is waking, my friend.”

Who the hell is that?

She frowned, struggling to open her eyes.

A hand moved gently over her brow. “Ally, can you hear me?”

Renate. Oh, thank god.

She pushed into his hand. “Yes.”

His relieved sigh fanned her face. Warm. Comforting. His
thumb stroked her too-hot skin as he murmured heavily, “You’re okay. Thank the
gods.”

Her eyelids strained apart. Light hit her pupils and she
turned away with a moan, waiting as her vision adjusted. Damn. Her head felt
all kinds of fucked up, her stiff muscles and aching bones telling her she’d
been hit by a truck, or worse.

“Where am I?” she managed. Hell, it even hurt to speak.

“You’re on the mother ship, kitten.”

She shrank back, breath hissing. No! And then it all came
back to her. Escaping the mother ship. Racing down the dark Ally. The dog
attack.

Her eyelids jerked wide apart. Pain lashed her head, her
eyeballs. Her leg and back.

Fuck.

Renate’s large form blurred before her, then came into
focus. “They caught us?” she asked, horror thickening her voice.

“No. I…I brought you here.” At her obviously shell-shocked
look, he gathered one of her hands in his and said hoarsely, “I had no choice.
You needed help.”

Something inside her chest tore. She’d been wrong about
Renate. He was no different to the other men she’d had in her life. She
snatched her hand free. “You lied to me.”

He frowned but didn’t deny it. She wasn’t even sure if that
was a good or a bad thing. Tears threatened. She willed them away. Even if it
killed her she wouldn’t allow him to see the depth of her hurt.

Another alien stepped close. She stiffened, unconsciously
shrinking back. His eyes, the color of a cold, mysterious sea, narrowed as he
studied her, before he looked to Renate and back to her again. He was more
finely boned than Renate, and his honey-colored hair drifted to the shoulders
of his orange coat.

This was undoubtedly the man…alien, she’d heard as she’d come
to.

She lifted her chin and glowered. He was beautiful. And yet
he did nothing for her. He didn’t sing to her soul.

Renate…he’d been her everything.

The alien turned to her former lover. In impeccable English
he said, “You should leave. She needs to rest.” Renate opened his mouth and the
other alien interjected, “She won’t be seeing anyone else.”

Anyone else? As in the other alien men I’m apparently
promised to?

She pressed her hands to her face, but it didn’t stop
Renate’s fierce voice from penetrating her numbed mind.

“Ally, I did what I had to do to keep you alive. Maddox has
a gift with plants, a gift with healing.”

Even with her voice muffled by her hands, none would mistake
its note of bitterness, even self-pity. “You should have let the dogs finish me
off.”

His shock pressed against her senses like a heat wave. Her
hands locked harder over her face as she repressed a stupid need to appease
him. She was so not going there.

When she heard his heavy tread moving away, her hands
dropped and she looked up, watching his rigid shoulders push through a throng
of broad, leafy plants.

Her heart skipped a beat. “Wait!” As Renate paused, her eyes
scanned the room, with its huge domed ceiling and enormous orb of light high
above, like an artificial sun. Though a wall of plants prevented her from
seeing too far, behind her some sort of transparent substance revealed the drop
to another floor below. Aliens moved beneath, in and out of her field of
vision.

She turned back to Renate, a sick feeling churning in her
gut. “Where is Bonnie?”

He turned slowly to face her, his posture stiff.

She glowered, but her voice cracked when she repeated,
“Where. Is. She?”

“I had to leave her,” he conceded gruffly.

She shook her head. “No.” Tears welled, then slid down her
cheeks. She didn’t have any strength left to block them. Not anymore. “No.
Please, no.”

He took a step forward. The other alien held up a commanding
hand. Renate’s eyes glistened. “I’m sorry.”

When he turned away and retreated through the plants, she
couldn’t stop the shudders of betrayal racking her body. She’d lost her beloved
dog. And now…now she’d lost all faith in the one man she’d thought had been
different from all others.

The alien cleared his throat. “I will have our queen pay you
a visit.”

She froze. “No!” She shook her head. She’d lost everything
and everyone she’d ever cared about. No amount of persuading would ease her
pain. “I don’t want to see anyone.”

Maddox stiffened. “Renate didn’t inform you our queen is
human?”

She wilted a little under his stare. “Yes. I guess he did.
I…I just want my dog back.”

The alien male stared at her as if she was mad, and who
could blame him? She’d dismissed the idea of meeting another earth survivor
with an even greater urge to find Bonnie. What this male didn’t understand was
that her dog had kept her sane, kept her going when some days she wondered if
she could.

Bonnie had been her best friend.

The alien’s face settled into an inscrutable, beautiful
mask. “That isn’t possible. We are far away from where your dog was left behind.
The craft is set on course for another earth woman who was detected by our
sensors.”

Ally struggled to her feet but staggered back. “No!”

The alien crouched beside her. He pressed a round cup to her
lips. “Drink this, it will help you to sleep, help take away your pain and your
single-mindedness on everything negative.”

I’ve just lost everyone I’ve ever loved and he calls it
negative?
She glared. “I don’t want it.”

He raised a brow. “Renate brought you to us just in time.
You suffered major blood loss and serious bite wounds. My plant tonics have
already helped you to heal and regenerate your blood, but you need more.”

Her lips pressed tighter.

He sighed. “Drink the tonic willingly or have it poured down
your throat by force. Your choice.”

“No mind games, then?” she asked with bitter-sweetness. At
his inscrutable expression, she muttered, “Fine.” She glared up at him as he
tipped the cup into her opened mouth. Citrus and sour melon, bursting on her
tongue as though fireworks before they became something else entirely.
Something that burned down her throat like whiskey set alight.

Then her eyelids grew heavy and fluttered closed, darkness
immediately descending.

* * * * *

Renate shoved through the orange shield and leaned against
the corridor wall with his chest heaving and everything inside him screaming to
race back into the Ak ‘ Bella, gather Ally into his arms and escape.

Where to, fool? Another part of the mother ship?

He pushed back the selfish needs arising within. Ally needed
to rest, to heal fully before he came up with any more wild ideas. Besides,
there wouldn’t be any escape now the kings knew of his planned defection. He
had little doubt Ezra would take that fact by the balls and squeeze hard.

He closed his eyes and released a slow breath. Ally hated
him now. But it paled in comparison to never seeing her again, never hearing
her gentle voice, touching her soft skin or seeing her face light up with her
smile.

If she ever smiles again.

He thrust an outspread hand through his short hair. He had
to trust the kings—even Ezra—with Ally. Trust that they understood just how far
he was willing to go to protect his woman.

Because she was his woman. His alone. And he’d do everything
in his power to win back her love, her respect.

A soft tread along the corridor warned him of Lillian’s
approach. His eyes opened and she paused right near him at the doorway. “She’s
going to be okay,” the queen said softly. And somehow her compassion and
understanding was almost his undoing.

He jerked out a nod. “I hope so.”

“The kings know you love her, but they doubt her human love
is strong enough in return to resist her other chosen ones.” Her voice lowered.
“And I have to say, I have my doubts too. I thought Dar was enough, then I met
Ezra and Maddox. I couldn’t resist who I was meant to be with.”

Pain lanced through his skull at the thought of Ally
succumbing to the other four men of worth. He shook his head. He
couldn’t—wouldn’t—go there. “She’s strong. I’ve seen her resist my mind
control.”

Surprise flickered across Lillian’s face. “Really?”

“Yes.” He straightened. “You know I’ll kill any one of those
men if they even attempt to go near her and test my theory.”

“We thought that might be the case. Which is why Dar had the
four chosen escorted to his earth base until a decision is reached.”

“But…?” Renate prompted, knowing any relief crashing through
his body would undoubtedly be short lived.

“Ezra has requested other strategies to test your earth
woman’s loyalty and love.” Lillian put a reassuring hand on his taut forearm. “There
will be no alien men, I promise.”

“Then who?” His eyes widened. “You?”

She nodded. “The stage is set for you and the kings to
oversee.”

“Then Maddox is fermenting sasquatweed,” he murmured. It was
an aphrodisiac few Carèche people had need of, but it was rumored to make a
person forget everything but their most primal desires.

How fitting that Ezra would use the one tonic that Renate’s
mother had used on Ezra’s father to bring him to ruin and disgrace.

He could only hope Ally found the strength to resist its
potency.

Bloody hell.

If Ally did fail the test and succumb to the queen…he stood
to lose her forever.

* * * * *

Ally placed her briefcase on her desk and sat at her leather
chair, aware her movements were on autopilot.

Just this once work wasn’t high on her list of priorities,
her finger not on the company’s pulse. She had more important things occupying
her mind.

In less than a week she’d be moving out of the house she’d
come to see as a home, moving away from the stepchildren she’d come to love as
her own.

She’d bought an apartment with million-dollar views of the
harbor. Yeah, and with absolutely no one to share it with.

She stretched, clicking her stiff neck. One just never knew
what was around life’s corner.

Clinton, her bald-headed, bespectacled co-worker and
possibly the company’s biggest brown-noser, banged on her door. She frowned as
he barged in before she’d called out for him to do so. But her frown dissolved
at seeing his flushed face, his bright, disbelieving eyes. “What is it, Clinton?”

“Have you heard the news?” His voice sounded breathless,
bewildered.

“No.”
I’ve been a little preoccupied.
“Should I
have?”

“Yes! UFOs have been sighted around Australia, around the
world!”

She rolled her eyes. Office pranks weren’t uncommon, but
this one was beyond ridiculous. She didn’t have the time or the patience for
this sort of bullshit. “If this is your idea of a practical joke—”

He shook his head. “No way. This is…it’s fucking incredible.
Come take a look.”

His too-earnest expression had her push to her high heels
despite herself. She followed him out of her office. And stared. The room
beyond was empty of its workers. Shit. The chief executive would have
everybody’s scalps on a silver platter.

Clinton turned. “They’re all in the conference room, watching
live footage on the big screen.”

“Of course,” she said wryly, even as her pulse picked up
speed, the palms of her hands beginning to sweat. This didn’t feel like a
prank. Not one bit. She followed him into the conference room at an almost run,
then froze. Her stare came to rest on the live coverage that flashed across the
screen.

Fucking hell.

* * * * *

She woke quickly this time, instantly attuned to the fact
Renate wasn’t by her side—and wanting him there with a desperation she didn’t
want to feel.

Her eyelids flicked apart, the bright orange of the alien’s
coat the first thing to come into focus.

Maddox smiled. “How are you feeling now?”

“Where’s Renate?” Her breath caught and she squeezed her
eyes shut for a moment. “And Bonnie, I…I want my dog.”

He ignored her questions. “You should be feeling back to
normal now—better than normal.”

She sat up gingerly. No pain hit at her with the force of a
sledgehammer. No vertigo. “How long have I been asleep?”

“In earth time, four hours the first time.” He pressed a
hand to her brow. “Twenty minutes just now.”

She jerked away from his touch. He backed away, giving her
some space. Only then did she realize someone had removed her jeans, her top.
And as she’d borrowed no underwear to begin with, she was left completely
naked.

She covered her breasts with an arm, but knew it mattered
little now. She’d been asleep and exposed to anyone who happened to be around.
Her face flushed. She could only hope she hadn’t slept in her favorite
position, on her back with her thighs splayed apart. Swallowing back
mortification, she peered down at her legs.

Holy shit. All self-consciousness fled, replaced by stunned
disbelief. No deep wounds, no cuts, scrapes or bruises. Not even a scar. All
that remained was a smear of dry blood. She looked up at Maddox. “That’s
impossible.”

He raised a brow. “My plants make many things possible.”

“I nearly died—”

“Very nearly.”

“I—thank you.”

He smiled again, his ice-blue eyes warming. “You’re
welcome.” He lifted a cup to her lips and she automatically swallowed. She
frowned at the peculiar briny taste. “This isn’t what you gave me earlier,” she
spluttered, tasting the foul brew all the way to her belly.