The Breeding Prize: A Scifi Alien Romance (The Breeding Games Book 2) Read online

  The Breeding Prize

  The Breeding Games Book 2

  Aya Morningstar

  Darkstar Press

  Contents

  1. Annabelle

  2. Raiska

  3. Annabelle

  4. Raiska

  5. Annabelle

  6. Raiska

  7. Annabelle

  8. Raiska

  9. Annabelle

  10. Raiska

  11. Annabelle

  12. Philos

  13. Raiska

  14. Philos

  15. Annabelle

  16. Raiska

  17. Annabelle

  18. Raiska

  19. Philos & Kiveta

  20. Annabelle

  21. Philos & Kiveta

  22. Raiska

  23. Annabelle

  24. Raiska

  25. Annabelle

  26. Happily Ever After

  Sneak Peek of Alien’s Primal Bond

  1. Ellie

  2. Kula

  3. Ellie

  4. Kula

  One

  Annabelle

  I’m almost done shelving the last of the children’s books. They’ll all just get completely disorganized again within twenty minutes, but for now they look nice and neat.

  I reach for one of the last books, but then I sense something behind me. I freeze and run my tongue across my lips. They’re suddenly very dry.

  Even though I know there’s probably nothing behind me, I’m still afraid to look. The longer I go without turning around though, the more certain I feel that something is behind me. I finally give in.

  There is someone behind me. It’s a man, but he looks more manly than any man I’ve ever seen. He’s towering over me. I stand up and turn around to face him. I don’t want to be on my knees in front of a man like this. At least not yet.

  I blush thinking about that and adjust my skirt. “Can I help you?”

  I meet his eyes. They aren’t like anything I’ve ever seen before. They aren’t blue or green, or even a blue-green, they are turquoise. It’s not a subtle shade of turquoise either. His eyes are striking, just like the rest of him. His shoulders are wide, and he’s rippling with muscle. He doesn’t look like a bodybuilder though. Muscles like these are never just for show.

  I realize then that he’s staring at me. I’m staring back at him. I asked him a question, but I didn’t manage to actually close my mouth after I asked it. My cheeks must be completely flushed, and I’m staring at him with my jaw hanging open.

  He’s just tilting his head at me, but when I force my mouth shut and let out a nervous laugh, he smirks at me.

  “Are you Annabelle?” He asks.

  His voice is deep and soothing, like a sexy lullaby. There’s an accent too, but it’s faint, and I can barely place it.

  I just nod, my heart racing in excitement that this perfect man knows my name. That he’s looking for me of all people.

  He didn’t just wander into the children’s section of the library—I do a quick scan to make sure there is no turquoise-eyed kid hanging around him—he came here specifically to find me.

  “And you are?” I hold my hand out so he can shake it. I’ve never been so enticed by the idea of shaking a man’s hand. It feels like it would be downright sinful to even touch the palm of a man who looks like this.

  “Raiska,” he says, slightly trilling the r. He takes my hand with both of his. He cups my hand ever so gently, and then he traces his fingertips across the back of wrist and knuckles. I get goosebumps all over my arms immediately, and I’m pretty sure my mouth drops open again.

  “Someone sent me to find you,” he says, looking around the library nervously.

  What? Oh, God, was it Priya? Is she seriously trying to set me up again? Well, if this is who she’s trying to set me up with, then I will finally stop resisting.

  “P-p-priya?” I ask.

  He looks confused for a moment, but then he nods and smiles. “Yes, Priya.”

  “I, uh, I have a break now,” I stammer. “Once I finish shelving these, I mean.”

  “I will help you.”

  Before I can protest, he’s down on the ground picking up books. He shoves them onto the shelf, but not in the right order.

  “Hold on—”

  “These are books for two-year-olds. Two-year-olds have not acquired the necessary skills for alphabetical order. It doesn’t matter how we do this.”

  He shoves another book onto the shelf. He puts The Briar Bunny after The Bunny Boogie.

  I laugh nervously. “I’m kind of OCD about getting these in the right spot. It’s also kind of my job.”

  He frowns at me, and as I reach over to fix some more of the books he messed up, he grabs my wrist.

  I look up at him, and his gaze is suddenly intense. I feel afraid for the first time, but I’m more aroused than afraid, because his grip is strong and tight, and God, those eyes.

  He pulls me up by my arm. There are still a dozen or so books left to sort, but I can’t even look at them. His gaze is holding me tight and bound, even tighter than the grip of his calloused fingers on my arm.

  “We have to go, Annabelle,” he says.

  “We do?”

  He nods. “Do you have a car?”

  “Where are we going?”

  I’m not the kind of woman who just drops everything and goes to sleep with an attractive man. I have had a one-night stand a few times, but each time I told myself I’d never do it again, because the weird feelings after are not worth the sometimes good feelings during. I can’t tell if that’s what Raiska is going for here or not though. It’s scary, because if he is just trying to get laid, I’ve never seen a man so intense about it. That could be either very bad, or very good.

  I don’t know him though. Not at all. Yes, I’m attracted to him. In fact, I’m more attracted to him than any other stranger I’ve ever laid eyes on. He’s still a stranger though, and even if he knows Priya, I don’t know him.

  Worse, if he isn’t just trying to get me to fuck him, then what in the hell could he possibly be going on about?

  I shake my head. “I have a bike.”

  “We’ll take my car then,” he says.

  “I’m at work though. Where are we going?”

  “You said you had a break.”

  “Where are we going, Raiska?”

  “Lunch.”

  He’s already pulling on me. We leave the children’s section and pass by some of my co-workers. Lisa and Morgan are staring at me with their mouths hanging open. Oh, no, they aren’t staring at me. They are staring at Raiska.

  “Where are we going to lunch?” I ask him.

  I’m relieved that he’s not going to just try to sleep with me. I don’t even know why I thought that. It’s probably just because I felt so impossibly attracted to him that my mind jumped straight there. He’s not trying to sleep with me—not yet at least—he’s just taking me to lunch. Like a normal…

  Okay, he’s not normal. I really need to separate my arousal from my brain, which normally works much better than this. He’s all but dragging me out of the library. He’s taking me to lunch, but it feels almost like he’s taking me on...a mission?

  It’s like going to lunch with me is some kind of life or death situation, and I’m going along with it because he’s hot? Is that really what I’m doing?

  He puts his hand onto the small of my back as we walk. His hand is so big he can grip my waist from both sides with one hand. He holds me possessively as we walk toward the parking garage.

  We step into the e
levator, and I hit the “P1” button. He doesn’t let go of me the whole time we are walking, and I don’t want him to.

  Okay, so yes, I am really doing this. He is that hot. If it feels this good for him to touch my waist, imagine him touching my—

  “Here is my vehicle,” he says, pointing to the very first car we see as the elevator doors open.

  “That one?” I ask.

  It’s a purple PT Cruiser. It has a pink “Fight to save the boobies” breast cancer awareness sticker on the window. There is a pink Hello Kitty plushie hanging off the rear-view mirror.

  He’s already guiding me toward the car.

  He pulls on the handle to the passenger side, but it’s locked.

  “Are you sure this is your car, Raiska?”

  He pulls something out of his jacket pocket. It’s not a key though, it’s some kind of...orb.

  It flashes a color that I’ve never seen before, and Raiska scowls.

  “What the hell? What color was that? What is that thing?”

  I try to get a better look at the orb, but he pockets it before I can see it.

  I realize then that something is very wrong. My arousal and attraction are giving way to fear. It only takes a few moments for that balance to completely swing, and when I very suddenly realize I’m in a dark parking garage with a man I barely know, I want to run.

  The only thing keeping me from running now isn’t attraction, but fear. If I start running, and he chases me, what then?

  “I think I need to go back to work.”

  He grabs my arm and squeezes. I can’t run now.

  “Raiska, I say. Please, let go of me.”

  “We’ll eat a cheesecake,” he says. “Philadelphia is famous for them. I’ll pay for it. Just get in the car.”

  He grabs the handle with his other hand and tugs. There’s a loud metallic grinding sound, and the door rips open. Something catches and tears as he opens, but the door opens. The car alarm goes off.

  He pulls his orb out. It flares another impossible color, and the alarm shuts off.

  I decide to run now. He is holding me tight, but if I move quickly and he’s not ready, I might be able to get enough of a surprise head start on him that he can’t catch me before we’re in public again.

  I make my move, and he squeezes even tighter. He tugs on me and pulls me against his body. He wraps his arm around me, and his muscular forearm holds me tight and confined against his abs, which I can feel hard and bulging through his clothes.

  “I’m not good with people,” Raiska says. “Especially not with humans. Forgive me. I wanted to put you at ease and build some trust by eating cheesecake with you, but I seem to have messed it all up.”

  I scream, and his hand covers my mouth. He throws me into the car and slams the door.

  He moves around to the driver’s side, and I try to open the door on my side. Maybe this is my chance, maybe—it won’t open. Whatever he did to force the door open, it made it so it can’t open even from the inside. It’s completely jammed shut. I try to jump into the back and get out from there, but Raiska is already getting in. He shoves me back into the seat.

  “Put on your safety harness, little human. I am not a good driver.”

  He is going to murder me? Isn’t he. Why does he keep calling me “human.” Maybe those eyes are just colored contact lenses and he’s pretending to be an alien. But then what about that orb and those strange colors? No, there’s no way he is possibly an actual alien.

  I try to punch him. It’s a lot like punching a brick wall—not that I’ve ever actually done that. He grabs hold of my right wrist and locks those turquoise eyes with mine. “I would throw you in the trunk, little human, but this vehicle does not have one.”

  “Let me go!” I shout, hoping my voice catches someone’s attention. Maybe someone is walking through the parking garage and could hear me?

  My punches did nothing to him, but what about my teeth?

  I lunge down and bite into his forearm. It’s all muscle and sinew, but I bite hard enough to draw blood. I clamp down until I taste his blood, but it tastes almost sweet rather than metallic.

  “Are you finished?” he asks. “You cannot hurt me. Put your safety harness on and let me drive the vehicle.”

  I bite harder still, hoping he’ll at least wince or swear, or do something that a human man would do in this spot. He doesn’t.

  I let go and spit the blood out onto his wound. “Why should I do anything you tell me to?”

  He takes in a deep breath, rolls his eyes, and sighs. It’s the most human thing he’s done since first letting his mask slip.

  “Listen to me,” he says. “I know you have no reason to trust me. I was attempting to build your trust by appearing like a human you would otherwise be attracted to. I was going to treat you to a cheesecake—”

  “You realize this is Pittsburgh, right? Not Philly. And it’s cheesesteak.”

  “I’m not good at these things like my half-brothers, Annabelle. I was trained to make people fear me.”

  “It’s working.”

  “You’re not going to believe me unless I show you my true form.”

  God, he’s going to whip his dick out now, isn’t he? I’m going to get raped in a PT Cruiser. This is not how I thought the day was going to go.

  The impossible colors flash again, and I raise my hand to shield my eyes. When I bring it back down, I see something more impossible. He has horns, and he’s blue. He’s suddenly shirtless and wearing nothing but a black kilt of some kind.

  “Oh my fucking God,” I whisper.

  He holds his orb up, the colors flash again, and the car starts.

  “Are you an...alien?”

  He nods.

  “Are you going to abduct me?”

  He nods again. “It’s not my choice to do so, human. I’m being forced to. To protect you.”

  I bite my lip. Something deep down inside me wants to believe him. At least until I go through the chain of events and realize that if he is telling the truth, then he’s protecting me from something. Something much worse than him.

  Maybe I don’t want to believe him after all.

  “Why don’t we go get that cheesesteak?” I ask. “You can tell me your story.”

  I realize he’s not going to let me go free, but maybe I can convince him to take me out into public again. If we were in public, I’m almost certain I could cause enough of a scene to get free of him.

  My eyes fall onto his bare torso, and his rippling blue muscles. I don’t want to be abducted by an alien, but God, if I am going to be abducted by one, I could have done a lot worse for myself than Raiska.

  “We don’t have time for cheesecake anymore. We have to reach the portal.” He puts the car into neutral and hits the gas.

  I watch as his brows furrow in frustration. When he looks down at the shifter, his horns scratch against the ceiling of the car.

  Should I tell him? Can he seriously not drive?

  “I put it in navigation mode,” he growls, hitting the gas harder. The engine revs loudly, but we don’t go anywhere.

  “Raiska, ‘N’ doesn’t stand for navigation mode. It’s neutral. You want ‘D.’ for drive.”

  He shifts into drive, and we start to move.

  Once we begin to pick up speed, I pull on the parking brake. The car grinds to a halt.

  “Tell me what is happening,” I say, looking over at him.

  I find myself squeezing his arm. Despite everything that is happening, some kind of trust is building in me. Maybe it’s just Stockholm Syndrome, but I want to at least hear his justification for all of this.

  “It’s very complicated,” he says.

  I expect him to use that as an excuse to not tell me anything, but instead, he begins to tell me everything.

  “The Ulkar are the race of my father. I’m a half breed. The eldest of my brothers, and the first of my kind, the Valittu. We acted as harbingers for the Ulkar for many decades, but my brothers and I—upon learning
there were others like us—defected and rebelled against the Ulkar. We stopped their invasion of Earth, and now they’ve gone dormant. Some have said they’ve ascended, but I’m skeptical of this. One of the Ulkar came to me a few hours ago. He told me you were about to be targeted for some kind of breeding experiment or competition, and—”

  “Wait. Breeding?”

  “Yes,” he says. “They called it the Breeding Games. This Ulkar—”

  “What is an Ulkar? Another alien?”

  “You don’t want to even know,” he says. “I will tell you if you insist, but listen, little human. The Breeding Games have begun, and you are the most fertile prize.”

  My face turns red, and I look down to avoid his gaze.

  “The Ulkar have given me a head start, Annabelle, but I don’t know how long it will be until the others come for you.”

  “The others?”

  He nods. “The other competitors. There will be three others who are trying to take you.”

  I summon the courage to meet his eyes again. “Do I really want to ask how you win the Breeding Games?”

  “Whoever’s seed gets you pregnant wins the competition.”

  God. I really didn’t want to know that.

  “So...you are going to—”

  He shakes his head. “A Valittu will not take something that is not offered freely. The Ulkar are blocking my usual escape routes, but I’ve managed to open a portal. If we can get there, I may be able to hide you from the other competitors.”

  “Are they...Valittu?”

  “No,” he says. “They will be other half breeds. The Ulkar want to know which of their children are strongest, which should inherit the lower dimensions now that they’ve ascended.”