Alien Lover (Zerconian Warriors Book 2) Read online

  Alien Lover

  Copyright

  Sadie Carter

  Alien Lover

  © 2015, Sadie Carter

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher.

  This story contains explicit sex scenes. R18

  Cover Design: No Sweat Graphics

  Editor: Christie Giraud: EbookEditingPro

  The story so far…

  Until a few weeks ago, our heroine, Zoey, was stuck on an Earth military outpost on Solim. Only Earth would put a military outpost on Solim. Nothing ever happens there.

  That is until a ship filled with Zerconian warriors landed. Picture the sexiest, hottest man you can think of and you won’t even get close to how utterly drool-worthy these guys are. She nearly melted into a pool of goo right at their feet. Seriously, you will actually lose the ability to breathe if you’re ever lucky enough to encounter one.

  But on with the story…

  Zoey met Dex. Her mate. That’s right. They are the first Zerconian-human mating ever. No one even knew Zerconians could mate with someone from another race. After they discover they’re mates, Zoey leaves with Dex for places unknown. Scary, but exciting as well.

  Then their ship is attacked. Their escape shuttle crash lands on Lyona and Dex is mortally injured (don’t panic, he lives. Book two would pretty much suck if he died, guys). Now they’re on the hunt to locate Dex’s missing warriors.

  Hope you enjoy the rest of the story!

  Sadie

  Chapter One

  “Fifty thousand credits for lanana!”

  Staring down at the short, ugly creature in front of her, Zoey smiled with delight.

  “Oh my God, it’s a troll. I never thought I’d get to see an actual troll!”

  As wide as he was tall, the troll had orange skin and a shock of frizzy purple hair that stuck straight up from his head, like a crazy professor. His bushy purple eyebrows almost completely covered his tiny black eyes.

  “Sorry, I can’t stop to talk. I’m on a chocolate mission,” she told him.

  Yummm chocolate. Milk, dark, white, creamy-centered or plain, it didn’t matter, she loved it all. She wiped her mouth, worried she might be drooling. What she wouldn’t give for some rich, dark chocolate right now. Hell, she was so desperate she would settle for plastic, cardboard-tasting, inferior chocolate.

  Zoey turned to the guard behind her. “Surely someone has to sell chocolate around here.”

  Musin, the planet they were currently on, was a central port for trade and had a huge, bustling market. It was dusty, hot, and crowded, with thousands of different races loudly selling their wares.

  It was awesome.

  Macon turned from frowning at the troll to look down at her. Waaay down at her. At well over seven feet tall, he dwarfed her five-foot-five frame. Zerconian males were big. And strong. Talk about muscles. Not an ounce of fat. Abs you could use as a dinner plate.

  She’d tried to convince her mate, Dex, to let her coat him in Sleva—which was similar to cream only much thicker—but he’d looked at her like she was one step away from the looney bin. Actually, she got that look a lot and not just from her mate. Maybe if she poured some Sleva over her breasts, then he’d understand how sexy it could be.

  “Milady, I have never heard of this chocolate.”

  Zoey sighed. She refused to believe she would never eat chocolate again. Really, it didn’t bear thinking about.

  “The lanana! The lanana!” The troll bounced up and down, waving his arms around.

  “Milady, move aside. Let me take care of this,” Macon ordered.

  Zoey waved her hand. “Nah, he’s harmless. Kind of cute. Like a two-year-old having a tantrum.”

  “You cannot take him back to the ship with you, milady,” Macon immediately warned, clearly alarmed.

  She stared up at him in exasperation. “Jeez, will you chill out.”

  “What?” he asked with a frown. “Are you too hot?”

  “I mean don’t worry, I don’t want to take him home with me.”

  Macon let out an unnecessarily exaggerated sigh. “That is good. You cannot adopt everything you see, milady.”

  “Is this still about the snappercut? Because I told you, it looks like a pet we have back home called a rabbit. Except our rabbits don’t have poisonous fangs.”

  Yeah, that had been a bit too close for comfort. She’d gone to reach for the cutest, fluffiest, black and white bunny she’d ever seen and bang! It had nearly taken her hand off.

  “We’re not telling Dex about that, right?” she asked hopefully.

  Macon just gave her a deadpan look. Great, Dex would not be happy. Although he’d been pretty preoccupied lately. It was possible he wouldn’t even care.

  She shook her head.

  Of course, he would care. It wasn’t like he’d lost interest in her. There were just more important things on his mind right now, like tracking down his missing warriors.

  Getting those warriors back had to be his top priority. Zoey knew that.

  A few weeks ago, their spaceship was attacked by Coizils, forcing them to abandon ship in escape shuttles.

  Not all of the shuttles landed safely. Two had been destroyed while two more had landed in non-friendly territory. Several of Dex’s warriors had been imprisoned or enslaved. Dex was determined to track down every one of them.

  “The lanana!” Spittle flew from the troll’s mouth. “The lanana!”

  “Dude, I do not know what a lanana is, but I can tell you right now that I don’t have one.”

  The troll stared at her in frustration. She could relate; she felt pretty frustrated herself. Obviously, he didn’t speak much Standard, the language most races used to communicate. Races involved in inter-planetary trade spoke at least enough to be able to barter.

  Zoey placed a hand over her mouth and nose, gagging as the troll grew closer. “Oh God, what is that smell? It’s like rotten eggs coated in garbage then rolled in a dead, decaying carcass. I’m gonna throw up.”

  She hastily stepped back, bumping into Macon, who steadied her. She glanced up into his stoic face.

  “Can’t you smell that?” Already her eyes were watering, and she had to swallow rapidly to keep the contents of her stomach from covering the dusty ground.

  “It is an unusually strong odor,” Macon replied.

  “How can you just stand there?” Coughing, she took another step back.

  “I am a warrior.”

  As if that explained anything?

  “Smell does not affect me.”

  “Why? Can you just turn off your nose?” If he gave her a lecture about having control over his reactions she was going to punch him right in his superior hooter.

  A crowd gathered, staring at them with interest. From a distance. Obviously they were well aware of how appalling the troll smelled.

  What the hell did he want?

  “Lanana!” He pointed at Giz, who was leaning against her leg. Giz had snuck on board their ship before they’d left Lyona. Dex hadn’t been too impressed when he’d discovered the furry creature onboard, but he didn’t have the time to return him.

  She was pretty certain that Giz wouldn’t leave anyway. He was her companion, sort of like a pet, except he looked more like a gremlin than a German Shepherd. He stood just over a foot tall with large, pointed ears
and tiny hands and feet.

  “Giz?” she asked. “Giz is a lanana?”

  “Milady, I have your—oh stars, what is that smell?” Her other guard, Jaxan, took three hasty steps back, covering his nose with his arm. The bag containing the tasty, fried dough snacks she’d sent him to get, dropped to the ground.

  “Hey! Watch the donuts!” She reached down and scooped them up. They weren’t called donuts here, but they sure tasted the same.

  Okay, so Dex wouldn’t be happy if he knew she was using her guards to fetch things. But the line for the donuts had been really long and she didn’t have time to wait around.

  Jaxan wasn’t as uptight and rule-driven as Dex’s other warriors. Which compensated somewhat for how serious Macon was. Macon needed to lighten up. She’d never even seen him crack a smile. She was starting to worry he didn’t know how.

  “Sorry, milady.” Jaxan coughed, his eyes watering.

  “I thought warriors weren’t affected by bad smells,” she snarked.

  “Some of us have more to learn than others,” Macon replied, glaring at Jaxan in disapproval.

  Shit. The last thing she wanted was to get Jaxan in trouble.

  The vertically-challenged male—at least, she hoped it was a male, because if it wasn’t, well…yikes—waved his hands impatiently.

  “Lanana! Buy!”

  “I think he wishes to purchase Giz, milady,” Jaxan told her.

  “Congrats, Watson,” she replied.

  Before meeting Dex, Zoey had spent most of her free time watching old movies and television shows. They had gotten her through some bad times. And they’d kept her from going mad with boredom when she’d been assigned to Earth’s military outpost on Solim.

  “Milady?” he queried.

  “Never mind.” The majority of Dex’s warriors spoke excellent Standard and they still couldn’t understand her half the time.

  “He’s not for sale,” she told the troll, then gave him a large berth as she moved around him. She didn’t have time for this.

  “No, no, no, want lanana!”

  The troll followed her. Zoey gagged, her eyes so blurry she could barely see.

  “Now you’re just pissing me off. Not. For. Sale. Get that through your thick skull.”

  Giz hissed again, as though backing her up.

  The troll reached out to touch her. Suddenly, she found herself behind Jaxan’s solid back. Macon grabbed the troll and held him up in the air, shaking him.

  Taking a few dozen steps away, Macon put the troll down. He pointed in the opposite direction. “Go.”

  The troll glared at her then turned and stomped off.

  She took a few deep breaths. “Whew, I can breathe again.”

  Giz rubbed his face against her thigh and she handed him a piece of fried dough.

  “Let us keep moving,” Macon ordered. “The Crown Prince would not be happy if we were late in returning you to the ship.”

  The Crown Prince can kiss my chubby ass.

  Three hours really wasn’t long enough when she hadn’t been able to shop in over a year. Mind you, she was amazed that Dex had let her off the ship at all. He had still insisted that she have guards. But she’d managed to negotiate him down from six to two.

  At the moment, no one knew she was the mate of the Crown Prince of Zerconia and the longer it stayed that way, the better. Six guards would have been seriously overdoing it. She might as well have them carry her around on a litter like Cleopatra with a neon sign saying, ‘I am important, kidnap me for ransom’.

  Zerconian females didn’t go anywhere without a guard. It was going to take some getting used to. A lot of things about her new life meant some huge adjustments. But, it was worth it to be with Dex. Sometimes the depth of her need for him scared her. The more she touched him, tasted him, kissed him, the more she wanted. Yep, he was turning her into a greedy sex maniac.

  Who could blame her? After all, he was a seven-foot tall, sexy beast of an alien.

  And he was all hers. A blessing. Sometimes a curse. He was under the mistaken impression that he was in charge and that Zoey should obey him. Without question.

  Grasshopper had a lot to learn.

  Oh, she was willing to make some compromises. She didn’t want to embarrass him and she would try her best to fit in and be what he needed.

  Dex was stop-your-breath, turn-your-muscles-to-goo, fry-your-brain gorgeous. Although he had his faults, he was an honorable, loving, and protective man. He’d never abandon his family as her father had. Or clear out her bank account and run off with her next-door neighbor like her ex-fiancée.

  But would he want her if there was no mating bond? When a Zerconian met their mate, a bond formed between them, enabling them to sense each other’s emotions. But the bond between Dex and Zoey had never fully formed. It was so weak that she worried it could be broken.

  And she’d be on her own once again.

  Dex had reassured her time and again that he would never leave her, that their mating was forever. But she couldn’t help but think that there had to be something wrong if the bond hadn’t formed properly by now.

  “Let’s keep moving, guys,” she commanded, making shooing gestures at her guards. They still had about an hour left until they had to return to the ship and she was going to make the most of it.

  Jaxan stepped up beside her. “I have never seen a troll before. They’re usually reclusive.”

  “I wonder why he wanted Giz?” She looked down at the little creature who was still munching away on donuts.

  Jaxan studied Giz. “He was very persistent.”

  Macon and Jaxan spoke to each other in Zerconian. She stared at them in frustration.

  “Hey! Tweedledum and Tweedledee. It’s rude to talk in Zerconian when I can’t understand you.”

  Jaxan had the grace to look apologetic. Macon just frowned. “Tweedle what?”

  She waved her hand. “Never mind. What were you saying?”

  They looked at one another. Then Macon drew his shoulders back. “We should return to the ship, milady.”

  She snorted. “Just because a troll with really bad personal hygiene tried to buy Giz? You could take him with one hand tied behind your back. It’s not midday yet and I’m not going back a second earlier than I have to.”

  Macon scowled. “I do not like how persistent he was. We do not know what he is capable of.”

  “Are you scared?”

  Macon scowled, clearly offended. “Of course not.”

  “Good. He’s gone now and I want to do some more shopping.”

  “Do you not notice how everyone stares at the furry little creature?” Macon asked her.

  She had noticed how everyone stopped to stare at Giz, but she’d figured it was just curiosity. “They’ve probably never seen something like Giz before. He’s unique.”

  “I don’t like it,” Macon said, scowling.

  “You don’t like anything.” She clicked her fingers. “But if it makes you feel better, I have an idea.”

  Ten minutes later, they all stared down at Giz, who glared up at them.

  “It’s not for long, Giz,” she reassured him. “Besides, I think you look cute.”

  He looked totally unconvinced. She’d managed to find a large hat that shielded most of his face and some children’s clothing that fit his furry body. She’d also bought a child carrier. Once he was in the carrier, he should look like a plump child. If anyone looked too close, they’d notice how furry he was, but it would fool the majority of shoppers.

  “Come on, climb in, Giz.”

  “Milady, I really think one of us should carry him,” Macon argued. They’d moved into a quiet alleyway to dress Giz. Jaxan stood guard at the entrance.

  Giz hissed at him.

  “Don’t think that’s happening.”

  Macon scowled at Giz but helped her put him in the backpack, barely managing to avoid being bitten for his trouble.

  “Giz, calm down. I think he’s still a bit hungry,” she told
Macon apologetically. “I’ll get him another snack and he’ll be fine.”

  She shopped happily for another hour until she noticed how quiet it was growing. Everyone appeared to be headed towards the center of the market.

  “Ooh, must be good shopping this way, Giz.”

  Giz let out a loud snore. Yeah, he was thrilled.

  “Milady, it is time to head back to the ship,” Macon insisted.

  “Already?” Where was everyone going?

  “The Crown Prince wanted us to get you back to the ship by midday.”

  “Fine.” Damn, sometimes trying to be a good Zerconian mate really sucked.

  She would make her tutor, Madam Arana so proud. According to the old bat, all Zerconian mates were patient, subservient and most of all…

  Obedient.

  Ick, she hated that word. Gave her the heebie-jeebies.

  Every time her tutor spoke, Zoey developed an urge to hit her head against a wall. Hard. Luckily all of her lessons were pre-recorded so Zoey didn’t have to hide her reactions.

  The tutor was a total bitch. She went through her lessons too fast, assigned Zoey impossible tasks, and then reprimanded her like a child when she couldn’t keep up.

  Zoey knew she was no genius, but she wasn’t an idiot, either. She’d graduated college. She was capable of learning new things.

  But Madam Arana took delight in setting Zoey up to fail. She’d even had the nerve to imply that Zoey wasn’t good enough for Dex.

  Like Zoey didn’t already know that. But she didn’t appreciate having it pointed out to her.

  I should tell Dex.

  But Dex had enough going on at the moment and she had promised him she would try her best. She wanted to fit in.

  As they turned to head back to the ship, Zoey spotted the same troll from earlier heading their way. And this time he had friends. Large, muscular, scary friends.

  He stopped and pointed right at her. Oh, crap.

  Frantically, Zoey searched for a place to hide. No way did she want to risk them catching up with her.

  “We need to move. Now,” Zoey said urgently.

  She turned and quickly, heading in the same direction as everyone else. Surely, there would be enough cover in the crowd to hide her and Giz. Whatever everyone was gathering for had to be a better than being accosted by Stinky and his possibly malodourous friends.