Holiday Abduction (Alien Abduction Book 6) (8 page)

However, the low temperature wasn’t why she shivered. She might claim they were still almost strangers, but Vhyl begged to differ.

In their short time together, he’d learned to read his human. To understand the varied emotions she expressed, both with her face and body language.

Vhyl slid his hand around her nape and drew her close to him, wondering if he could change her mind with a kiss, as he found himself reluctant to leave her.

It made no sense.

I want her.

Not because she would complement his collection of rare and priceless things.

Not because, as an attractive human, she’d fetch a high price on the Obsidian market.

Not because she was a fabulous coital partner—although it did help.

Vhyl wanted her because, despite their short acquaintance, he felt a connection to Jilly. An urge to discover the different facets of her personality. A desire to further explore her intriguing personality and nature. A need to protect her imbued him. A jealousy that another might kiss those lips burned him.

So many things he felt.

Felt?

What the frukx?

Was he suffering from the human emotion she kept calling love?

Argh. I’ve caught an Earthling disease.

Yet oddly enough he didn’t crave a cure.

He thought all these things as he kissed her, but he said nothing aloud. Warriors did not speak of their mental turmoil. They did not admit to emotion unless it was to tell their enemy how much they hated them and looked forward to disemboweling them.

A warrior most certainly never told a female that a lifetime without her seemed bleak and not worth living.

The air in the truck steamed with the frenzy of their kiss. Just about to yank her onto his lap to see if they could contort themselves enough to indulge in carnal play, he could have shot down his own vessel when it suddenly arrived, hovering overhead and drenching the outside in darkness as it blocked the glow from the moon.

Jilly pulled away from the kiss first. In a soft voice she said, “Your ride is here.”

“Come with me.” He didn’t quite beg, but he winced at his request, unable to believe he’d asked yet again.

His weakness when it came to this female was revolting, and yet he couldn’t help it. He wanted her.

She didn’t immediately say no. “What if I did and things didn’t work out?”

“Then I would return you. My word.” Which, despite his mercenary ways, was worth its weight in precious gems.

Warriors rarely made a promise, but when they did, honor made them keep it. Some thought that odd, given their penchant for rule breaking, but as the mercenary handbook said in one of its many education chapters, “Breaking a vow is easy. Too easy. A true mercenary takes the harder path always.”

“I don’t know. Maybe we—”

Whatever reply she meant to give was lost as an explosion rocked the ground. Her truck trembled.

“What the fuck was that?” she yelled.

After all they’d been through, she really had to ask?

“My enemy, of course.”

“Don’t be stupid. If someone is shooting at you, take cover.” – Grandpa’s not often heard philosophy because Grandma usually slapped him in the arm and said, “Shut up, Merle. Everyone knows the smart thing to do is fire on the bastards and take ’em out.”

When Vile dove out of the truck, Jilly didn’t immediately follow. One, because she was still stunned by his request she go with him, and two, there was a fucking alien shooting laser beams, which really didn’t seem conducive to staying alive.

Wouldn’t you know, one of them sliced across the hood of her truck. More than sliced, it carved off the whole front end, which hit the ground with a thump.

My truck. My precious baby.

Killed. By a fucking jelly-tentacled Martian.

If ever she’d wished for a flamethrower—and had Grandma lived she’d have surely wrapped one for Jilly under the Christmas tree—it was now.

Vile ripped open the driver door. “Are you trying to die? Get out of the frukxing vehicle.”

Since her truck seemed a target rather than a haven, Jilly obeyed. Two feet on the shaking ground, though, didn’t mean she knew where to go. Exactly where did Vile think she could flee that was safe? An open field, with singed furrows in the snow, didn’t exactly provide cover.

He noted her hesitation and deduced the cause. “Head for my ship,” he yelled. “I will hold Mo and his progeny off.”

Easier said than done considering his enemy was making snow melt with wild sweeps of his laser gun.

When one made the toe of her boot smoke because the glowing ray came so close, she retreated back to the shadow of her truck, where at least she didn’t make such an inviting target. It also blocked her view of what was happening, though. Standing behind a wheel, lest she lose more than a toe if a laser swept beneath the undercarriage, she peeked over the truck bed.

One big purple dude in a space jumpsuit racing full-tilt across the road, yelling some battle cry? Check.

One human gaping in astonishment and wondering how she’d gone from worrying about the bank foreclosing to staying alive in an alien attack? Check-ing into a mental asylum because she was sure no one would ever believe her.

How Vile managed to dodge the laser burst, she couldn’t have said. Each time she blinked against the brightness, he was in a different spot while his last location smoked a crater.

Given his hands were empty, she wondered what he planned. Somehow she didn’t think choking Jelly dude would prove effective.

But Vile had a different plan in mind.

He aimed his finger at Mo, and in the sudden silence that came between the laser bursts, she could have sworn she heard him say. “Bang. You’re dead.”

Less bang and more like sizzle. But not from Vile’s purple digit.

His spacecraft was the one to shoot a molten stream of fire. At least she assumed the blue and white streak was fire, given it hit Mo and ignited the tentacled blob. With only a tiny squeal—kind of anticlimactic if you asked her—jelly guy melted into a bubbling glob of goo. Glowing green goo, which she’d bet was radioactive, and would probably cause some interesting crops to grow in that spot next spring.

(Actually, as it turned out, according to the news she read a year later, the area had the oddest infestation of waggling, almost tentacle eared bunnies who seemed to be multiplying quicker than usual.)

Given the fate of his sire, Mini-me tried to run. Or slither. Whatever you called his attempt to escape, it failed and he suffered the same fate. Poor thing.

Not.

A quiet swept the land, even though a giant saucer hovered overhead. Neat technology those engines of Vhyl that didn’t even rumble. But not as cool as the purple hunk striding toward her.

A hunk who frowned in displeasure.

“I thought I told you to get on my ship.”

“One. I would have died before making it. Two. Exactly how do you get on the damned thing?” Because she didn’t see a ramp or stairs. Hell, it didn’t even have a cool tractor beam thing like most sci-fi movies portrayed.

“I forget you know little of our technology.”

“Try knows nothing of your technology.” And never would. The reminder kind of depressed her. She scuffed a foot across the ground. “So I guess this is goodbye.”

“You won’t come with me?”

Here he was asking again. Did she dare take a chance and—

Sirens wailed in the distance. Time grew short. She needed to make a decision, so she brashly asked, “Do you think you’ll ever love me?”

The answer, while expected, still hurt. “Of course not. Love is a human emotion. But I do want you.”

Disappointment slumped her shoulders. “Want isn’t enough. Just because you want something doesn’t mean you should have it.” Or that she should leave everything she’d ever known.

What about when he no longer felt the burning need? What would happen to her when he awoke one day and moved on to pinker pastures—or, in his case, maybe purple ones?

“Are you denying me?”

“I’m not coming with you.”

“Just because I won’t admit to a human frailty?” The concept seemed to flabbergast him.

“No, because I deserve more out of life than to be something a man wants to own. I deserve to be loved.”

“I would take care of you. Pleasure you. Shower you with presents.”

“It’s not enough. Not for me. Go, Vile. Go back to your world.” One she didn’t belong in.

He frowned. He really was pulling out all his adorable stops, but she fought his allure.

“You’re being obstinate, Jilly.”

“No, I’m being human.”

Red lights and blue lights strobed in the distance, but they were less ominous than the stuttering sound of a helicopter, make that more than one. The military was closing in.

“You should leave before they catch you,” she said.

“As if they could,” he scoffed.

No, but they could destroy his vessel.

With no heed for the danger—damn him for being so sexy—he drew her to his chest and kissed her.

The heat of it almost changed her mind. It definitely weakened her knees.

Then lights were upon them as cars screeched to a halt and doors slammed.

Vile released her, his eyes glowing. He opened his mouth and shut it. His lips thinned. “Goodbye, Jilly.”

He turned and began to sprint, only to abruptly stop when she yelled, “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

He whirled, his face inquiring, his reflexes perfect as she tossed the artifact to him. He caught it, but strangely, he seemed almost disappointed.

They stared at each other.

Stared long enough for men to rush and line the field, yelling about surrendering.

With a gesture of his hand at the soldiers and cops that was probably the human equivalent of ‘fuck you’, Vile leapt into the air, an incomprehensible act until the beam of light shot from the belly of his ship and engulfed him.

Blinded, Jilly shut her eyes against the brilliance, and when she opened them again…

He was gone.

He left.

And it made her chest ache something fierce.

Despite their short whirlwind of an acquaintance, she’d grown fond of him and would miss him. Especially now with cops flooding the place and sure to bombard her with questions—right after they arrested her.

She didn’t bother to run. Run where? Her house blew up. And how? Her car sat in two pieces, scrap metal at best.

Even more depressed, she sat on the tailgate of her truck, only to find herself ignored.

While lights swept over her, and a swarm of people tramped in the next field over where Mo’s remains glowed disturbingly, no one spoke to her, or even acknowledged her.

It’s as if I’m invisible.

A theory she tested in the chaos that followed Vhyl’s departure.

Somehow, Jilly managed to avoid getting arrested. It could have been because, while one space saucer disappeared, another was discovered across the road in the other field. Mo’s neon grave also drew lots of attention. Or maybe her lucky spell had to do with the wristband Vile had slipped on her during their kiss.

Whatever the reason, it was almost as if she wore some kind of invisibility glamor, one that allowed her to walk away from the area unchallenged.

Alone, and downcast, the adrenaline wearing off, she wandered away from the scene of chaos.

Eventually, her spell of invisibility, or whatever it was that let her escape unseen, wore off because she managed to hitch a ride, several as a matter of fact, which, given her ragged state, was a bit of a surprise. Or not, given at least one guy needed a black eye to learn “Don’t touch” meant don’t fucking touch.

Almost twelve hours later, her last ride dropped her off at her farm. Her poor destroyed farm.

In between the explosion of the farmhouse, the vehicles that had run amok, first putting out the fire then investigating, the entire area was a churned-up mess of snow, mud, and debris.

And to think I turned Vile down to come back to this.

At least with him, she would have enjoyed some pleasure, at least for a while. But in the end, she preferred to nurse her broken heart here among her own kind than later when she was well and truly lost—and she didn’t mean just in space.

She couldn’t have said how long she stared at the ruined mess.

A vehicle drove up behind her, and still she didn’t move. Where would she go? She’d thrown away her chance at a new life.

Stupidest move ever.

“Miss Jillian Carver?”

Oh you’ve got to be fucking kidding me.

Could her day get any worse?

Perhaps if she ignored him, he’d go away.

Nope.

“Miss Carver, I know you can hear me.”

Unfortunately. She pivoted to behold the prick she’d been dealing with at the bank. Less dealing and more like begging for more time. Time that he denied.

Flanked by a pair of cops, he held a sheaf of papers in his hand.

“What do you want?” she asked, unable to hide her irritation.

“Since you failed to pay the sum owing on your mortgage, it is my sad duty to inform you this property is now the possession of the bank.”

“You’re foreclosing? But I thought I still had a few days.”

“It is our right, especially given the willful damage done to the property in the past few days, to change the date. It’s right here in the contract.”

He pointed to a small blob of text, which she was sure in some legal mumbo-jumbo backed his words.

“But it’s Christmas Eve.” A fact she’d almost forgotten in the turmoil but suddenly remembered as a glint of melted gold winked from the rubble.

“We wanted to get this settled before the end of the business day. As of this moment, you no longer own this land.”

A few days ago she might have ranted and raved. Maybe even resorted to tears.

But now?

She didn’t care.

On the contrary, knowing the farm, and all its problems, was being taken from her actually lightened the load. She was free. Free from the crushing debt of it. Free from its maintenance and headaches and everything that came with owning land she couldn’t care for. Land that kept her from being free.

Would her grandmother turn over in her grave?

Probably. But then again, Grandma freaked when alive over lots of things.

She also knew her grandmother would have never wanted Jilly to suffer or feel trapped.

Of course, now that Jilly was homeless, and had her epiphany moment where she realized she could go anywhere and do anything, she really wished she’d gone with Vile.

So what if their relationship lasted, one day, one month, or forever? So what if he thought he couldn’t love? Perhaps she could have taught him.

I could have seen and done things no one ever imagined.

What an adventure. What a man. What a fucking loss.

Sigh.

As the bank prick departed with his armed escort, but not before administering an admonishment to clear the property by midnight, she found herself well and truly alone.

In the cold.

No money.

Sans wheels.

Without a thing to her name.

So was it any wonder when the beam of light shot down from the sky, she smiled.

He came back for me.

Just one problem.

It wasn’t the right he.