Alien Romance: Stranded With The Alien Assassin: Scifi Alien Abduction Romance (Alien Romance, Alien Invasion Romance, BBW) (Celestial Mates Book 3) (2 page)

Sophie nodded. She had her own accent as well, but it was easier to tell what she was saying. It was an English accent, Jayne observed, something more familiar than Meta’s. “It’s impossible,” the redhead agreed, “I’ve seen it on the news, how women have gone missing. Now I know where they’ve gone to… They don’t come back home, Jayne.”

“We’re not like them,” Jayne insisted, “Just… Trust me. I’ve been looking for ways to get out since we got here. We’ll figure something out.”

She wasn’t lying. Since she was thrown into the cell, Jayne had been watching several things. She checked the entire room for any possible ways to escape. No way except for the front door. And she also checked for when guards would pass by the door, when the smugglers would change shifts. There wasn’t another shift changed for 73 minutes.

While there were all these facts and routines that she had noted down, Jayne still didn’t have the slightest clue as to how they were getting out. The only thing she could think of now was having Meta make a large enough scene and bum-rushing whichever guard had the misfortune of coming to their cell. But then that left navigating through the rest of the ship, fighting off the rest of the smugglers, and getting the ship turned back around.

Jayne was an optimist, but she wasn’t
that
naïve to think that could work. Plus, she still had some things herself that she wanted to take care of, one that involved more waiting than what the others were looking for. 

Her two cellmates sat on their beds quietly now, waiting for a plan. So she gave them what best she could. “First thing’s first, where did you guys come from?” she asked, then pointed to Sophie. “You were already here when I was, and I got taken in New York.”

“London,” Sophie answered. That wasn’t unexpected. “Earth.”

Meta still had her hands crossed, and she tilted her nose up in the air with pride. “I am from Planet Elyon. I am princess to the largest tribe in Hokai.”

Jayne nodded.

“So, big cities for that planet… That means that we’ll probably be brought to another big city. Once we land and they bring us out, we can get the other girls to make a break for it at the same time. It’ll cause a distraction, and we’ll just need to make a break for it to a government building or an official. If we’re still within the Milky Way, kidnapping is completely banned. We’ll get sent back home and the criminals will get punished.”

She looked at the both of them, gauging their reactions. The warrior princess spoke first. “That does not sound like a plan. I want to fight-“

“With what weapons?” Jayne asked, cocking an eyebrow, “And I’m going to guess these criminals are pretty trained in combat, seeing as they managed to take
you
hostage.”

“The other women-“

“Probably don’t have the same fighting skills as you, if at all,” Jayne countered. She looked at Sophie. “You ever fight, Sophie?” She shook her head. “See?”

The women sat in silence. Jayne was sure that Meta Vani and Sophie were both trying to find holes, ways to pick up the speed on the escape or improve it. But they were never allowed out of their cells, which meant no communication with the others, no way of knowing how to get out of the maze. While she knew it was an impossibility to escape now, a part of her wondered, almost feared, that they’d figure out a better way.

But if they did, they didn’t mention it. Meta Vani went back to the banging on her door. “I will run tomorrow. But if I can bring down few guards too? I will try,” she explained to them. Jayne thought it was better she play it natural and keep doing it anyways, as much as it stressed Sophie.

She stayed on the bed with the younger girl, who was now sitting up fully, training her crystal blue eyes down on the ground. “What did you do in New York?” Sophie asked.

“What?” Jayne was surprised by the question.

The girl stammered. “I-Nothing. It’s just… You seem really smart. Good at planning.”

Jayne put on a comforting smile. “I’m a teacher,” she told Sophie, “Elementary school. Part of my job was making plans for people to follow without getting harmed, so… I guess it comes in handy now?”

She talked to Sophie for the rest of the night and they ate dinner together. Meta refused the food at first, distrusting it, but with a planned run, for however long it would be, she knew she needed the strength. Together, they dined and talked, told stories about their homes. Jayne learned that Sophie had two younger brothers, that her family actually lived in Blackpool, but she’d been going to school in London. She also learned that Meta Vani was indeed a warrior.

Her father prided himself on a strong daughter and was letting her lead her first army to take over a neighboring village. She was kidnapped the night after the news, having gotten drunk to celebrate. Jayne told them about students, kids that she helped. She told them that she was in a bad part of her town picking up a friend from her job when she got taken. She told them how stupid she felt, knowing that the area was famous as an area where women were going missing, though the news had been linking those events to a serial killer doing his job.

The next morning, they were woken with a start. Well, Jayne wasn’t sure if it was morning, but there was a clock above the door, and she highly doubted they slept
that
long. She only got a quick glimpse of the time when she was being pulled out of bed again. Her arms still ached from the bruises from before, and Jayne twisted and squirmed. “Let… Go!” yelled instinctively.

“Stay the fuck down,” her attacker hissed. He had her face pressed against the bottom bunk and her arms restrained behind her. Jayne tried to twist her head to check on her friends, but she couldn’t see them, and a hand was preventing her from moving at all. She could hear Meta’s shouts and Sophie’s cries though, and knew that they must be getting the same treatment.

She heard another voice at the door. “I thought you ladies wanted off the ship?” It was the same man that threw her onto the ship, she remembered. Jayne would always remember that voice. She needed to.

The smuggler that had her restrained pulled Jayne back up. She could feel rope around her wrists now and an erection at her ass. She jerked away from him, causing the smuggler to shove her forward through the doorway.

With no way to stop herself, she ran straight into the wall, banging her head. Jayne cried out in surprise. She turned her body long enough to find the face of the man in the doorway, who had side-stepped to cause her to injure herself. He wore a lopsided grin on his face, cocky, and a scar going down from his left eyebrow to his chin. One of his eyes was damaged, the left one, the iris completely whited out.

“What you lookin’ at, bitch?” the smuggler who restrained her asked, picking her back up. He looked back towards his boss and sniggered. “Captain Randleman’s already got his red viper woman. He don’t like human slaves.”

“You could always take her, Gromm,” Captain Randleman laughed, “You know the rules. Try out the product, just don’t break it.”

That caused her attacker, Gromm, to scoff and start shoving Jayne forward again. “Where’s the fun in ‘at?”

I’m trying to remember your faces, idiots
, Jayne thought, but she didn’t say anything. She kept on walking, meanwhile trying to get a read on the details of the ship, for anything that she’d missed while being thrown
onto
the ship.

She’d told Sophie and Meta to do the same and hoped that if she missed something, they would catch it. But Jayne very rarely missed things. And now she had a new piece of information.
Slaves
.

The first thing she felt when she stepped off the ship was heat. It was as hot as New York in July, though there was less humidity. It was a dry heat. Jayne winced from the bright light of the sun in the distance. Everything seemed white, orange, or brown. Even the sky seemed almost golden, the sun beginning to set. How the hell was it this hot at sunset?

She didn’t want to know how hot it could be during the middle of the day, and with it getting dark, Jayne took it as a good omen. But the land before her seemed like a desert. Flat, sandy, and orange mountains in the distance.

There was supposed to be a major city around them. They were supposed to be in some sort of underground sewer below the city. How far was civilization, from where they were meant to be? Where were they even?

“This way, bitch,” Gromm grumbled, shoving her again, “Fucking heat. I hate this place.”

She saw an opportunity. “Where… Where are we?” Jayne asked, tilting her head in his direction. She tried to keep her voice pleasant, even a little scared-sounding to make him feel like he had the real power in the conversation.

He answered her with another shove. Her bare feet burned from the temperature of the sand, making her move faster in hopes that they could get some more protective flooring. As they turned a corner, she saw homes built from mud in perfect squares. They looked completely abandoned.

In the center of the huts was a larger hut set up higher, built on top of a clay tunnel. “Imdali,” Gromm answered. He was taking her to the central hut, pointing his weapon at her as she followed his orders of where to stand.

Jayne’s toes dug into the sand, trying to move the hot sand and replace it with the cooler sand beneath. “S’pose this is your new home… If you do well at the auction, that is,” he said, “Maybe just keep your pretty mouth shut, and someone’ll bid a few imdallions on ya.”

“Imdali?” she persisted, “Is that in the Milky Way still?”

Gromm frowned. “What’s it fuckin’ to ya what galaxy you’re in?”

Jayne pressed her lips together. “Like you said, it’s going to be my new home.”

“What you’re doin’ here, you won’t need to know what galaxy. Want some useful information, bitch? Just smile, look pretty, and hope ya don’t get yourself one of the weird ones. Your red-haired friend? She’s young, doe-eyed… She’ll get a few perverts, no doubt.”

Jayne looked at him with disgust as he smiled. He was easy to get talking, and since she left her cell, the human knew what she was in for. Perverts… Slaves… Bidding. There was an auction for the women standing around her, for
her
. Sex slaves.

Jayne began to feel uneasy, now realizing what would happen to her if she couldn’t escape with her friends like she promised them she could. Gromm backed away with the rest of the guards that brought their prisoners out. Soon, they were all there, minus the red woman from their cell.
God, what has that captain done to her
?

She couldn’t wait another minute. Jayne felt nauseous, like every part of her was itching and the only way to solve it was to run and get away from these men. “Everyone, run!” she shouted. She didn’t care that her hands were tied behind her back, that she had no shoes, no idea of where she was going.

Meta didn’t hesitate, running in the opposite direction as Jayne to throw the guards off. Sophie hesitated for only a moment before she followed Jayne, a few feet behind her. They didn’t look behind them to see who else ran, but they could hear an uproar starting, female screams and male shouting.

Jayne didn’t stop for anything. Her feet and her lungs were on fire, and her balance was hampered considerably with her hands behind her. But she managed.

The sun was fully setting now, the sky becoming a dark blue. She kept her eyes on a start that twinkled just above a dark spot she knew were mountains.
Run to that star
, she told herself,
Keep running, Jayne. Until you get to the star
.

“Jayne!” Sophie shouted behind her.

She thought it was a sign of defeat, that Sophie was stopping. Jayne couldn’t stop, but she told herself that she would come back for Sophie. She would get her out once she caught up with Meta, just like she promised she would. But it wasn’t a cry of defeat. It was a warning, which Jayne would have realized if she dared to look behind.

She landed in the sand with a painful thud. “Oof!”

“Gotcha,” a male voice grunted. Jayne tried to struggle against him, but with his weight fully on her, she couldn’t move. “You run incredibly fast for a woman with such short legs.”

Her captor lifted her to her feet. His hold wasn’t rough or violent like the others, but there was a firmness there that made her incredibly aware that he wouldn’t be afraid to grip her as bruisingly as the others, if not harder.

“You still caught me,” she breathed. She turned her head and met eyes with them. His eyes were large, brown. They’d almost seem kind if they didn’t look so hardened and serious.
Distant
,
that’s what it is
, she thought to herself.

He was dressed differently than the men on the ship, dressed for the desert with light armor and loose clothing. He didn’t look at all polished either, tan and covered in a thin layer of grime, beard thick and brown hair all shaggy and matted down to his forehead with sweat. “Who are you?” she asked.

She didn’t know why, but the man smirked. “Does it matter?” he asked.

Jayne shrugged. “Maybe. You get to know my name, don’t you?”

“No, and I don’t want to know it.” His hand moved down to the ropes around her wrist, walking with her and pulling it in the directions they needed to go.