The Million Miles High Club (Scifi Alien Romance) (Celestial Mates) Read online

  I jog down the stairs to the loading bay, counting the floors as I pass them. The elevator pod would have taken microseconds, but I prefer the exercise.

  Two hundred and forty-eight floors later, I open the door to the loading bay. The chill hits me immediately.

  Yes, I decide, I will need to do plenty of physical exertion to stay warm down here. I would be denied robes and a portable heat-sphere, even if I asked for them. Doubtless, Captain Plinaro would let a rebellious soldier freeze in the deserted loading bay, rather than extend any kindness to him.

  With a sigh, I begin to jog laps around the vast room, to warm up. I know I can keep that up for many sun-turns, if needed. It will allow me time to think, if nothing else.

  My mind wanders as I complete the first circuit of the spacious floor.

  The life of a Yolcadian soldier is never meant to be easy. I have always known that. I expected physical discomfort. I expected long work days, and zero leisure time. I signed up because I wanted to serve my planet.

  I am not afraid of hard work and sacrifice. I have always expected to be tested to the limits of my stamina.

  But what I hadn’t expected was the all-encompassing, crushing loneliness.

  On a ship full of thousands of other Yolcadian soldiers, I often feel entirely alone. Deep inside, I know in my hearts and soul that I yearn for a mate.

  And a mate is the one thing I am never going to have. Not now I have chosen this career.

  When my blood pumps too hard with the desire for a soft, warm companion, I throw himself into more training and work. It is the safest thing to do. It will be a long time before I am released from my military duties. By the time I am discharged, I will be too old for coupling. I cannot afford to let my thoughts linger on the idea of a mate.

  But my mind doesn’t always do my bidding. It often drifts when I sleep, so that I wake with the imagined memory of soft lips on mine, and warm curves in my arms. The dream seems so real. I experience pangs of genuine disappointment when I realize I am alone, sealed into my rest pod with no female company for light years in any direction.

  I am just starting on my third lap of the loading bay when there is a sudden flash.

  It is followed by a bang, louder than a shower of asteroids pelting down onto a Yolcadian mountain range.

  What can have caused such a noise?

  Right in front of me, a very small spaceship slides across the loading bay floor. It has apparently entered the loading bay through the wall, but it left no hole or trace of its entry.

  I blink, completely taken aback. How could this be?

  The spaceship is only big enough to carry two Yolcadians. Three, at the very most. It is a ridiculous little thing. One of the tiny rebel ships, I think, which buzz like silly wink-flies around Alliance ships like ours.

  I have always wondered why anyone bothers to fly toy-size ships like that in the first place. They must be useless in a battle. Worse, they get in the way of the intergalactic military when we are trying to do our job.

  But what is really baffling is the way the ship just appeared in the loading bay, right in front of me. I still don’t see how that occurred.

  No portal has opened. Even if one had, the airlocks are sealed and did not let anything through. Nothing could have entered this zone of the ship without being scanned and searched.

  No matter how hard I try, I cannot understand how this chunk of metal has gained entry. It is impossible.

  The vehicle skids slowly to a halt, resting its nose against a side wall. After a few moments, there is a bleeping sound. Its door opens upward, right in front of me.

  A computer’s voice calls out words in some alien language I have never heard before. I gawp at the pathetic little ship, dumbfounded.

  The next moment, my entire universe changes.

  For the rest of my life, I will never forget how this moment felt.

  When the door opens, a being emerges from the ship. It wears a gleaming silver flight suit, but no helmet. Its shape appears to be female. But it is so much shorter and more rounded than the usual Yolcadian female, at first I wonder if I am mistaken.

  But no. It is a female. And she is exquisite.

  Her skin isn’t turquoise, though, for some reason. It is a sort of creamy-pinky-brown color. Her skin looks a lot like my skin, in fact. But females aren’t the same color as males! What on Yolcadia is going on?

  Instead of the bare scalp of a normal female, this being’s head is crowned with long black silken ropes. She swings them over her narrow shoulder as she clambers out of the ship, burbling unfamiliar sounds in a high musical tone.

  In truth, I have never seen anything so beautiful in my life. Or so bewitchingly strange.

  I cannot help but stare at the vision of loveliness in front of me.

  When the female being sees me in the back of the room, she screams.

  I hold up both hands in what I hope is a reassuring gesture.

  “Do not be frightened, female,” I assure her. “You have nothing to fear.”

  The female being waves her arms in the air, and then pats the side of her head. Suddenly she begins to speak sensibly.

  “Is this thing on? Oh yeah. Okay. What language are we dealing with here?” She seems to be addressing the inside of her own skull. “Yolcadian. No shit. Right. Listen, dude, I don’t know how you beamed me in here, but you’ve got to let me go. I don’t take kindly to being kidnapped.”

  I stare at her. “I know nothing of any kidnapping. You arrived here, without warning.”

  “No, no. Look, I was talking to that cherub, and then this huge ship appeared in front of me, and then Lola said—what did you say, again?” The female turns back to the open door of her ship and hollers at it. “Lola! What just happened to us?”

  The alien computer voice emerges from the ship again. The female being switches back to its own strange language to converse with it.

  I watch all of this with fascination.

  Eventually, the female turns back. “Oh, man. My onboard computer thinks we got caught in a free-floating wormhole. That’s all she can think of. I guess it saved our lives, because we would’ve been squished like bugs on your windshield otherwise. But we never meant to fly into your ship, okay? We’ll be out of your hair just as soon as you can direct us to the exit portal.”

  “This is a loading bay,” I say, slowly. The beautiful alien is pretty clueless. “It does not open unless we are docked on solid ground. It exists solely for the exit and entrance of material goods. The airlock will not engage otherwise. This bay does not have any route for launching ships back into space. You’re going to need to exit through the wormhole again.”

  We both look around.

  “I don’t see the wormhole,” she says.

  “No,” I agree. “Neither do I.”

  “You mean I’m stuck here until this big hunk of junk lands somewhere?”

  “Indeed.”

  “And when are you next landing? Today?”

  “Not for many sun-turns.”

  The alien female shrieks words I don’t recognize, but which sound vexed.

  “Let me get that damn cherub back here,” she says, in my language. “Do you know how to call him?”

  “Cherub?” This female is behaving more oddly by the minute. I don’t know any cherubs. “I do not understand the reference you are making.”

  The female makes an exasperated noise, scrunching up her face and baring her tiny little white teeth. It is adorable.

  I have to cross my hands over my belt buckle, because I can feel my body betraying me beneath my uniform. My pants are close-fitting, and I fear she will notice my arousal if I do not cover myself.

  Holy Moon of Chronos, how I want her. More than I have ever wanted anything in my life. The longing hits me at full speed like a punch to the stomach.

  How I would love to feel her soft thighs gripping my waist as I plunge deep inside her, and…

  But these kinds of thoughts are hopeless. I can’t ha
ve her. I know I shouldn’t want her, or any female. No mates during my working life. That is what I vowed. No Yolcadian soldier is permitted a mate on active duty.

  Even worse, this female is from another zone of the universe altogether. The entire thing is without hope.

  It pains my hearts that she looks agitated. “Look, I just wound up in the wrong place at the wrong time. I can’t stay on board this ship until you just happen to land somewhere, years from now. That’d mean I’d be transported light years away from where I’m supposed to be, and I won’t have the fuel to get back.”

  This bothers me too. “You can’t just fly back to your own planet?”

  She shakes her head. “My ship’s too small for intergalactic travel. I couldn’t carry the fuel needed, and my jets are way too light for long-distance travel. I’m strictly a one-solar-system-at-a-time kinda girl.” She glances at her ship, then back at me. “There has to be another way.”

  But we have no further time to discuss it in more depth. Before I can think of a suggestion, there is a thumping noise. It is followed by what sounds like the rapid bang-bang-bang of an old-fashioned bullet gun.

  Three doors to the loading bay fly open simultaneously. Several hundred Yolcadian troops surge in, all at once extending their ray guns. All point them at the alien female.

  We are surrounded.

  “Get back, Scorvan,” calls the commanding officer. “We’ll take it from here.”

  “Oh, shit,” the beautiful alien says.

  3 Kalia

  I don’t know what it is about this alien dude. But man, just looking at him is making me… wow. The only way I can describe it is… hot and bothered.

  God, he’s gorgeous. I mean, gorgeous. How is anyone that good-looking? It’s not natural.

  Perfect chiseled jaw with just the right amount of shadow. Broad shoulders. Dark, piercing eyes. Thighs that could break rocks. He’s seven feet tall, easily, and perfectly-proportioned. Everything about him looks right.

  His muscles make his sleek uniform bulge in all the best places. And the sand-colored skin of his face almost glows in the harsh halogen lighting. He looks like he’s carved from some iridescent off-world gemstone.

  I’m so dazzled by his looks, I’m practically drooling.

  But he’s an alien, for crying out loud. An honest-to-God alien, from a different freaking solar system.

  So why am I so attracted to him?

  Humans are notoriously picky about dating aliens. At least, the ones I know are. People from other planets mix it up all the time, and yet we humans mostly seem to stick to our own kind. We’re famous for it, especially among our neighbors, the Martians. They tease us about it all the time. They think Earth folk are real homebodies.

  And I don’t know why it’s like that, because there’s no real reason for it. Maybe we demand shared cultural references with our partners? Maybe we don’t meet too many hot aliens? Maybe aliens think we suck and never ask us to the intergalactic prom? I’m clueless.

  But whatever the reason is, it has never occurred to me that I might one day feel this sort of insta-lust for a male from another planet.

  Pretty short-sighted of me, I guess. There are a billion worlds out there, so there must be a lot of sexy guys to choose from.

  This one is particularly appealing, though. And that’s putting it politely.

  He makes my eyes water, he’s so fine. And I’m not even going to mention the effect his hungry stare is having on the rest of my body.

  And he’s not from just any other planet either. Nope. I had to start crushing on a damn Yolcadian, of all people.

  I’ve heard plenty about the Yolcadians. In my line of work, we have to know who we’re dealing with. Yolcadia is one of the key partners in the Gromalf Alliance. That means I work directly against them most of the time.

  So that also means I know a few things about them. That could be useful right now, since I seem to be on their territory somehow.

  I make a quick mental list of the facts I know about Yolcadia.

  First off, the planet is vast. Earth is home to just a few billion people. Yolcadia has trillions. It’s on a whole other scale.

  Then there’s the fact that Yolcadia is an unimaginable number of light years away from our galaxy. That means we don’t have a lot of history of intermingling. We have no common history to work with.

  It gets worse. Earth’s happily full of freaks and misfits, and that’s just one of the reasons I love the place. But the Yolcadians are big conformists. They all seem to do as they’re told. Their leaders are basically dictators. They all pledge to work for the Gromalf Alliance, and there’s no resistance movement at all.

  What a bunch of boring asshats.

  And yet—I just can’t take my eyes off the Yolcadian right in front of me. Something about him just hits the spot for me. Sure, he’s more or less the same physical shape as a human man. But he’s bigger. More muscular. More imposing.

  And I still can’t get over the way he’s more handsome than 99 percent of the human men I ever met. He has the eyecatching beauty of an airbrushed movie star on a billboard, only he isn’t airbrushed. He looks that great in real life. It sounds crazy, but it’s true.

  As well as all that, he’s looking at me with a half-ravenous, half-adoring look that lights a fire up inside me instantly. I’m not sure I was ever looked at like this before. Warmth floods my insides like lava from an erupting volcano. I literally quiver slightly just watching him clench his jaw.

  Damn it. What’s the matter with me?

  They’re not like us, I remind myself silently. Even though they kinda look like super-hot, super-tall versions of us, apparently. Yolcadians are not good people. They support the Gromalf Alliance. They don’t give a shit about the little guy.

  Sure, this guy’s sexy as hell, but we probably have zilch in common. Less than zilch.

  But damn. That body.

  I really must be starved of male company, because my physical reaction to him is way out of control. I order myself to stop staring, because I’m already out of my comfort zone on this giant military ship.

  And then shit just gets worse.

  There’s a mighty banging noise, and the room is suddenly filled with a thousand Yolcadian soldiers. Or, at least, that’s how many it looks like to my terrified eyes. It’s probably more like a few hundred, on second glance.

  Either way, it’s scary as fuck.

  In a matter of seconds, I’m right in the center of a ring of alien warriors, all aiming their laser weapons at me.

  Dammit. I knew I should’ve stayed in my bunk this morning.

  Still, at least I know my LingoKnow® implant is still working great. I understand every word they say.

  “Get back, Scorvan,” one of the men says. He has an especially shiny chest-plate on. I guess he must be the leader of his pack.

  So. Scorvan. That’s Hot Alien Dude’s name. Scorvan.

  I whisper it to myself, trying out the sounds. “Scorvan.” It’s kind of nice. It suits him.

  Scorvan steps forward when the shiny chest-plate guy addresses him. And he looks really pissed.

  “Stand down,” he roars at the assembled soldiers, in his dark chocolate voice. “I am already handling our visitor. There is no danger, and no reason for you to raise arms against her.”

  Handling me. I wish.

  Then I have to remind myself to stop thinking inappropriate thoughts. Now ain’t the time. This is an emergency.

  Shiny Chest-Plate Leader stabs a long finger toward me. “You’re calling this a visitor? Hardly.” He has a snake-like smile, with a dark red metallic tint to his eyes. “She’s an intruder. A criminal.”

  Scorvan’s fists clench at his sides. He looks like he might attack the leader at any moment. Attaboy.

  “A visitor is what she is,” he says, staring right at the leader.

  The leader smirks openly at him. What a prick.

  “Nonsense,” he snarls. “And you don’t have the authority to d
ismiss my men either, Scorvan. An unauthorized ship has just boarded the Qualfigon. That is a Category Scarlet infraction.”

  I turn to Scorvan. “The Qualfigon? That’s the name of this ship?”

  Scorvan nods briskly at me. Then he turns back to the leader. “Category Scarlet only applies if there’s an obvious threat. This female is alone and unarmed.”

  He sounds thrillingly defiant in my defence, and I think I’m going to have to kiss him sometime. You know, to thank him. Maybe we’ll both be nude. I try my best to keep a lid on my imagination while this all plays out.

  “You’re certain the female human is unarmed?” The leader holds his hands up to quieten his troops.

  Scorvan looks at me, then back to the leader. “Yes.”

  “Okay, technically?” I whisper to Scorvan. “I do have retractable laser guns on my ship.”

  Scorvan looked exasperated. “Why did you say that aloud?” he whispers back.

  I shrug. “Look, I just want to be totally honest. They’ll search my ship anyway. This way, they know I wasn’t hiding anything. That’d look worse, right?”

  “I suggest you stay quiet and let me handle this,” Scorvan mutters, shaking his head.

  He turns back to the ring of soldiers. He’s standing firm with his feet planted wide apart and his broad shoulders square, like some kind of man-mountain. It’s so hot.

  “Clearly, someone must notify Captain Plinaro,” Scorvan continues. “He posted me here and put me in charge of monitoring the loading bay this sun-turn. It is my responsibility. I am taking care of the situation my way. Captain Plinaro will tell you the same. You do not have the right to storm in here waving your lasers at a guest.”

  I love how his huge muscles flex and ripple as he tells the leader like it is, with fury in his voice.

  God, I bet he’s strong. I don’t want to think about how easily he could throw me down and have his way with me.

  Who am I kidding? I really want to think about that. For hours, in my bunk.

  Just then, another Yolcadian enters the loading bay, and the other soldiers all fan away from him, like they’re scared of him.