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    Alien's Challenge: A Sci-Fi Alien Romance
    Alien's Challenge: A Sci-Fi Alien Romance
    Alien's Challenge: A Sci-Fi Alien Romance
    Ebook174 pages2 hours

    Alien's Challenge: A Sci-Fi Alien Romance

    By Nancey Cummings

    4.5/5

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    Read preview

    • Survival

    • Adventure

    • Trust

    • Space Travel

    • Romance

    • Fish Out of Water

    • Unlikely Allies

    • Space Opera

    • Space Pirates

    • Forced Proximity

    • Opposites Attract

    • Alien Romance

    • Enemies to Lovers

    • Found Family

    • Reluctant Hero

    • Alien Abduction

    • Escape

    • Friendship

    • Power Dynamics

    • Science Fiction

    About this ebook

    Stop me if you’ve heard this story before. One minute Alice was camping, trying to connect with nature, then there’s this blinding white light. Gravity must have quit because Alice and her sleeping bag were floating off the ground.

    Classic alien abduction.

    She wakes up on an alien planet full of, you know, aliens. Outlaws. Rules are optional and people are property. So not cool. Then there’s a train robbery and she's getting abducted. Again.

    But this guy? He’s a giant lizard man, just a solid wall of muscle, scales, and bad attitude. He’s dangerous and he’s gone into a mating fever, which he says is her fault.
    So what is she going to do about it?

    Better question, what is tall, dark and grumpy going to do about it?

    Two decades ago Faris was exiled to this prison planet. Only the strong survive here.

    He's too old for a mating fever but his body has other ideas. The human female was not part of the plan, an ordinary smash and grab, but she's his now.
    And he does not share.

    Alien's Challenge is a stand alone book in the Outlaw Planet Mates series. The books can be read in any order. No cliffhangers, no cheating and a HEA.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMenura Press
    Release dateNov 11, 2021
    ISBN9781005073770
    Alien's Challenge: A Sci-Fi Alien Romance
    Author

    Nancey Cummings

    Nancey writes fun, fast and flirty scifi romances featuring feisty heroines and out-of-this-world heros. Nancey lives in an old house with her husband and two cats who have complaints with management. When she’s not writing, she enjoys video games, horror movies and anything involving time travel.

    Read more from Nancey Cummings

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      Book preview

      Alien's Challenge - Nancey Cummings

      Prologue

      Alice

      Hello! A figure waved in the distance.

      Oh no. Alice’s stomach sank. Not that Miriam wasn’t a nice person, but what the hell was she doing here?

      Miriam! How unexpected, Alice said. She stood from her folding camp chair.

      Am I interrupting? Miriam’s too-perky voice verged on teasing as she looked around the campsite.

      Tent for one. One sleeping bag. One chair. Yeah, Alice was alone. She’d been alone since her ex-husband ditched her and didn’t have the emotional strength to trifle with romance again.

      It’s just me and the mosquitoes, Alice said.

      I brought pizza. Miriam held up a flat cardboard box and gave a shy smile. It’s low-carb with a cauliflower crust.

      What kind of abomination was that?

      Great, Alice said, voice flat. But what—

      I’m not commenting on your weight, she said quickly. You were talking about cutting back on carbs, so I thought this would be a nice olive branch.

      Alice didn’t think the low-carb pizza had been a comment on her weight, but now she did.

      And yet, Miriam continued, If you want, I can get you a buddy membership at my gym. I can show you some exercises that are really great at working your glutes—

      Alice rolled her eyes. Well-meaning people kept offering unsolicited tips and advice about exercise or food. It was exhausting. What are you doing here? she asked.

      This was a one -person camping trip. Super exclusive. Just Alice and her fat butt.

      Oh, I wanted to apologize, Miriam said.

      You could apologize on Monday.

      She bit her lower lip. You’re mad at me. Is it the pizza? I’m not making a dig about your weight. Really. I like the cauliflower crust. I order it all the time.

      It’s not about my weight, Alice snapped.

      But thanks for bringing it up twice.

      I know I messed up. You’re my friend and I’m sorry, Miriam said.

      Alice took a deep breath, willing the tension to leave her body. That was the point of the camping trip, right? Commune with nature. Relax. Forget the world and the damn internet for a few days.

      Until the root of her problems showed up with a cauliflower pizza.

      Miriam wasn’t her friend. They were colleagues. Yes, they were friendly at work, but they never socialized outside of work hours. That, Alice suspected, was her fault. She was prickly, and Miriam was so damn nice it was suspicious. Fresh out of school, she was so eager about everything.

      Okay, that was definitely on Alice. She had a cold, cynical heart.

      Maybe, just maybe, it had a little to do with how her ex-husband, Travis, dumped her because he just couldn’t support her self-destructive life choices and immediately started flirting with Miriam. Like, right in front of Alice in the library.

      First, enjoying food was not self-destructive.

      Second, having your husband hound you into going to the gym before work when you wanted to sleep did not make you a fan of working out. It made you resentful.

      Third, it was a remarkably bad idea to work at the same school as your ex. She should have transferred to another school in the district.

      Alice was better off without Travis. Miriam could have him. The ink wasn’t even dry on the divorce papers before he started putting the moves on her coworker.

      Not that Miriam was anything but professional during work hours. She seemed to recognize that Travis was a giant douchebag. A fact that had taken Alice years to see. So it was a complicated mess of feelings, most of which fell on Alice.

      Ugh. She wanted to get away from this garbage.

      Alice tilted her face to the sky, which had turned a deep violet as the sun slipped behind the trees. She needed a drink. She needed to get laid.

      She couldn’t do anything about that, but there was pizza.

      We might as well eat before it gets cold, Alice said. A low-carb pizza sounded like it would taste terrible. Being cold would only make it worse. Pull up a piece of ground. I’ve only got one chair.

      Alice had no intention of being a gracious host and giving up her seat. Miriam was ten years younger than her and probably did yoga every morning. She could sit on the ground without her knees and back complaining.

      Awesome. Miriam folded her legs and sat gracefully on the ground like it was nothing. I really am sorry. I just posted a picture to my Insta, and it became a thing.

      Alice saw the photo, a dumpster behind the school filled with old textbooks they had weeded out to make room for new books. #backtoschool #weedingthelibrary

      The internet lost its collective mind.

      Look, twenty-year-old textbooks did not help anyone. In fact, parents screamed about outdated textbooks. Old textbooks got weeded to make room for the new books, and that usually meant going to the dumpster. There wasn’t a farm upstate that took elderly textbooks, and precious few places accepted donations, let alone two hundred and fifty copies of US History that didn’t include the last two presidents.

      Yeah, it was unfair, but sometimes books have to go to the big library in the sky.

      But there was Shakespeare in the dumpster!

      The internet was not having it.

      The world will not miss thirty copies of a 1997 edition of Romeo and Juliet. Shakespeare will survive, she wrote.

      Maybe that hadn’t been the smartest comment. Live and learn. Ever since her inane decision to engage on social media, the messages and emails hadn’t stopped. Her mother called wanting to know what Alice had done. Even Travis seemed concerned.

      So a weekend in the woods seemed a good idea. Smart, even.

      The problem was, between the earnest but insulting comments about her weight and trekking all the way out here with a pizza, Alice couldn’t tell if Miriam was sincere or not.

      That’s a lot of work just to get a fat joke in. So, probably sincere. Clueless, but sincere.

      I’m not upset with you, Alice said.

      A white light flooded the area, blinding her.

      Chapter 1

      Alice

      Today’s outlook: it’s gonna suck.

      In all fairness, all the days had sucked since Alice went camping and subsequently got abducted by aliens. Nothing about today was remarkable on the suckage meter. Same old, same old, sitting on an ornate cushion on the floor, wearing a collar attached to a leash.

      There were certain unexpected events that Alice had mentally prepared for. Sinking in quicksand? She had a plan. Need to send a message to her past self to save the future? She already picked out a password. Zombies? Aim for the head and destroy the brains.

      Alien abduction while camping? Not so much. It was ironic because that was how it always happened in the movies. Okay, maybe one movie, but it made an impression on her.

      That she was even camping was bullshit. Yeah. She wasn’t a fan of camping, even if that had more to do with the alien abduction than actually struggling to pitch a tent.

      Long story short, bright light, floating off the ground, little green— gray? —men, and she woke up here.

      Well, not here, here. At a warehouse was her best guess. The building had that cold, industrial look with concrete floors and harsh lighting.

      A fog lingered in her head, making her sluggish and slow to respond. She was forgetting something important, but it kept slipping from her mind, like trying to hold water in her hands.

      People—alien people? —kept talking. Alice tried to ask where she was and all the other typical questions about what the hell was going on, but her words slurred. They injected her with something. She tried to struggle but moved like she was stuck in mud.

      He was there. Tall, red scales, watching her with reptilian eyes. His name was Randevere, as far as she could tell. Someone jabbed her behind the ear, and she could understand them. When she tried to speak, they patted her on the head and called her a cute, little, squishy thing.

      They treated her like a child. Worse, a pet. Randevere’s cute, squishy human pet.

      Before she could protest that she was a person, not a cat, they shoved her into a crate. The days that followed were hazy. Sleep in the crate. Come out of the crate and sit on a pillow. Be quiet.

      Alice suspected that her food or water had been drugged. Exhaustion never seemed to leave her.

      Today was different. Today, they were on a train. For the last few hours—how many she couldn’t say, but it felt like five or six—the train zipped along through an urban maze into a rolling prairie, and now the tracks wound their way through a mountain pass.

      Alice watched the landscape, the fog in her head slowly lifting. She marveled at how the alien landscape all felt so similar, despite two suns in the sky. The larger sun looked like the regular old sun. The second was tucked up alongside it, diminutive in appearance, and cast a bluish light.

      This was definitely an alien planet.

      Surrounded by aliens.

      Who put a collar on her.

      Sitting on a cushion and being treated as a pet wasn’t the worst outcome. No one tried to eat or fuck her. Randevere largely ignored her, which was fine and dandy. She had food and water, even if it was drugged. Clothing that covered a bit more would have been nice, though.

      The current snow-covered mountain view outside suggested that Alice would freeze when they got to wherever they were going. Fluffy white flakes sped past the window. Hopefully, someone would realize she needed shoes, pants, and a coat.

      Alice rubbed a hand up her arm to warm her bare skin.

      What is it doing?

      A tug at the leash attached to her collar forced her to turn at Randevere’s question.

      I’m cold. I need clothing. After chipping her, they gave her a piece of gauzy cloth and a blanket. She wrapped the gauze around herself like a sarong, even though the cloth didn’t hide anything, and huddled under the blanket.

      Randevere watched her, the vertical pupils in his eyes narrowing, and the frills at the side of his neck fluttered. She’s trying to speak. How charming.

      "I’m not trying, I am speaking, you giant red jackass. Give me shoes. She pointed to her foot. Shoes! I need shoes."

      You do have tiny feet, yes you do. He patted her on the head.

      No, I’m cold! I need shoes and a coat. Look at my goosebumps! She shoved her arm in his face. The thin hairs stood on end.

      Her antics no longer amused Randevere. He pushed her away, forcing her back down onto her cushion. You will be quiet, or you will be put in your cage. Do you understand?

      I understand you’re a dick.

      He tilted his head, watching her.

      I understand, she muttered. She curled up on the cushion, tucking her feet under herself, and resumed watching the world glide by.

      She didn’t know where they were going, but she guessed it wouldn’t be her idea of fun.

      The train entered a tunnel. With the outside view nothing but blackness, Alice had nothing to distract herself from her misery and resentment.

      Randevere had staff, or maybe henchmen. Three aliens, the same reptilian variety as him, came in and out of the carriage. When he wasn’t issuing orders, Randevere busied himself with a handheld device that reminded her of a phone, not

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