Mated to the Xenshi: Xenshi Mates, #1

Table of Contents

Cover

Table of Contents

Look for these titles from Aria Bell

Title Page

Copyright Warning

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

About the Author

Also by Aria Bell

More SF Romance Available Now

Excerpt from Taken by the Xenshi by Aria Bell

LOOK FOR THESE TITLES BY ARIA BELL

Now Available

Xenshi Mates

Mated to the Xenshi (Book One)

Taken by the Xenshi (Book Two)

The Galactic Alien Mates Series

Mated to the Jardan Warrior (Book One)

Mated to the Warrior Prince (Book Two)

Mated to the Jardan Pirate (Book Three)

The Waterworld Series

Their Accidental Bride

MATED TO THE XENSHI

Xenshi Mates Book One

Aria Bell

Copyright Warning

EBooks are not transferable. They cannot be sold, shared, or given away. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is a crime punishable by law. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded to or downloaded from file sharing sites, or distributed in any other way via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the publisher’s permission. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000 (http://www.fbi.gov/ipr/).

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious or have been used fictitiously, and are not to be construed as real in any way. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations is entirely coincidental.

Published By

Wolf Hill Publishing

MATED TO THE XENSHI

Copyright © 2018 by Wolf Hill Publishing

ISBN: 978-1-947135-75-8

All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

First electronic publication: April 2018

First print publication: May 2020

DEDICATION

Special thanks to Lacy and her husband. And to Nina, who beta read for me. You all rock!

CHAPTER ONE

Madison lay back on her lounge chair in the warm sand, lazily closing her eyes. People raved about the beaches in the Caribbean. They were right. White sand. Vibrant blue water. The hot sun felt amazing on her skin, and the cool sea breeze felt even better. She should have taken this solitary vacation sooner.

A shadow fell over her, blocking the sun. Madison squinted upward, expecting to see the hotel waiter with another Mai Tai. Instead, she saw a black cloth bag hovering in the air as though the person holding it were invisible.

Madison sat up abruptly. The bag moved, coming straight for her.

She scooted back in her chair, but something grabbed her. Something she couldn’t see. It felt as if invisible hands were gripping her arms, pulling her up. The bag went over her head, yanking at her dark braid.

She shrieked and struggled. It felt like more than one set of hands, but she couldn’t see anything through the dark fabric covering her head. She kicked out, but more hands caught her legs.

Madison struggled to control her panic. She felt outnumbered. Her captors were far stronger than she was.

She screamed louder.

They pulled her to her feet. She was hauled through throngs of sunbathers, stepping on towels and banging into beach chairs. Someone yelled angrily at her to watch out. Surely, people noticed she was being dragged away against her will?

Help! she cried. Somebody!

Why was no one stopping her captors?

Someone else yelled for her to watch out. Still, she was powerless to escape whatever was pulling her blindly across the sand.

She nearly tripped over a threshold of some sort. Immediately she felt the drop in temperature. The warm sun was no longer on her skin. No more hot sand under her feet. The floor beneath her felt cold and metallic. The frigid air raised goose bumps on her arms.

Someone pulled the bag off her head. Madison blinked, staring around in disbelief.

She was on a movie set. A sci-fi movie. She stood on a large flight deck with various aliens milling around. Some worked at screens that looked like transparent holograms in the air. A wide window took up half the wall.

Why the hell would someone kidnap her and bring her to a movie? Was this one of those prank TV shows?

If so, the cast wasn’t human.

They had fat, oval bodies with at least a dozen thin arms. Their skin was a sick yellow like bile. They spoke to one another—at least she thought it was speech—with strange hissing grunts.

Six other women, also in bikinis, stood around the deck wide-eyed, looking just as scared and confused as Madison.

Shouting in a strange language she didn’t understand, the aliens shoved the women roughly toward a row of wire cages not much bigger than large dog crates.

What the hell is going on? one woman shouted. She pulled hard against the skinny arms that grabbed her. Let me go!

The alien struck the woman across the face. She fell to the metal floor and didn’t get up.

A small trail of blood began to drip from her ear.

Madison went cold. This was no movie.

The aliens pushed and shoved the women into the cages. None of them resisted. One of the aliens kicked the fallen, bleeding woman with his foot, but she didn’t move. He said something to two of the others, who came forward and picked the woman up. Silently, they carried her off and disappeared around a corner.

Another alien grabbed Madison with its many arms and shoved her into a cage. She didn’t resist. She didn’t want to end up like the unconscious, bleeding woman they just dragged off.

Around her, the other women were screaming or crying hysterically. Madison thought her heart would burst with panic as she watched the last cage door slam shut.

The captors paid the prisoners no mind and went about their business. Some left the deck. Others took their places at the controls.

Then Madison’s cage began to rattle against the floor of the ship. Her stomach suddenly dipped as if she were on an elevator. The ship was rising off the ground.

Through the wide window, Madison saw the crowded, white beach plunge away. The floor beneath her rose and then dropped abruptly. Her head slammed into the top of her cage. Then the ship rose on an angle as they turned. Her stomach heaved as they climbed rapidly.

She’d never been so afraid in her life.

Wispy clouds blew past them, growing thicker. Then they were above the clouds in clear, blue sky. And still rising.

Madison swallowed hard. It had to be a dream. She closed her eyes, willing herself not to be sick. She’d fallen asleep in the sun after one too many Mai Tais with those little umbrellas. This was all a terrible nightmare. In a few minutes, she’d wake up in the hospital, being treated for heatstroke.

She opened her eyes. She was still right there on the ship. The women in the cages gaped at one another. She met a few of their frightened gazes. They all seemed to be thinking the same thing—they didn’t want to be the next one carried off unconscious. Or…dead?

A large creature lay in the cage to her left, at the end of the row. It was far too large for the space. Another alien, but not like their spindly-armed captors. This one was enormous. It had two legs and four large, muscular arms, thick and solid as tree trunks. Its skin was bright orange, almost red. A slim, prehensile tail curled around one of the bars. Peeking from beneath what looked like a loincloth was an enormous set of…balls.

Madison shivered. The creature looked even more vicious than their captors. If they could subdue a creature so huge and powerful looking…

The ship shuddered slightly. Outside the wide window, the sky darkened to black.

They were in space.

Madison gazed around at the other women. They all looked as dazed with disbelief as she did.

She turned to the tall, slim blonde woman crouching in the cage on her right. The woman looked back at her. Her blue eyes gazed out nervously from her pale face.

Madison gave her a small, reassuring smile and turned away. Her fingers ached from clutching the bars of the cage. The cries of the women made the hair stand up on the back of her neck.

This was real. As much as she didn’t want to believe it, it was.

She shook the bars, desperate to get out. They didn’t budge. What did these aliens want with them?

Aliens. She still couldn’t wrap her head around that. Exhausted, she let go of the cage bars and sat back, trying to think. Panicking wasn’t going to do her any good. She needed to get a hold of herself.

She craned her neck in the small space, trying to see any structural weakness that could be exploited. The cages looked well made, with no loose bars or wiggly joints.

The tall, blonde woman to her right leaned close. Any ideas?

Madison shook her head.

I’m Sophia, the blonde woman said. My friends call me Sophi.

Madison.

Sophi’s big, blue eyes looked scared. This is really happening, isn’t it?

Madison wished she could deny it. I’m afraid so. This wasn’t the way I’d choose to find out aliens existed.

One of the yellow oval aliens headed back toward them.

Sophi called out to it. What do you want with us? My parents have money! They’ll pay whatever you ask!

The alien replied with more hissing in its strange language. It approached with a long, thin device that looked like a syringe with a trigger. At the end lay a long, gleaming needle.

Madison and the other women shrank back in their cages.

The yellow alien gazed at the cage on the end, the one with the huge, half-naked orange alien with the four arms. It kicked the cage, but its captive didn’t move.

It moved to the next cage. Madison’s. It waved one of its hands over the front, and the door slid open. The alien grabbed Madison’s arm and pulled her out.

She tried to fight him off with her hands. She was painfully aware that all she had on was a skimpy bikini, which offered no protection against the terrifying device he carried.

The alien overpowered her easily, throwing her to the floor and pressing her flat to the cold metallic surface with its foot. Several spindly arms wrapped around her legs, hands, and torso. Two more pressed her head hard into the floor. She saw one of the creature’s long-fingered hands bring the needle up to her head, close to her ear.

The world went white with a shock of pain.

CHAPTER TWO

When Madison came to, she was back in her cage. The alien was gone.

She glanced around. Not gone. It was moving down the row of cages, giving all the women the same injection.

The alien didn’t look up from the woman who it was trying to inject. Stop struggling, idiot slave.

Madison froze. She could still hear the grunting and hissing, but now she could understand the words. She raised her hand to the sore spot behind her ear and felt a small raised lump under the skin. Had they inserted something that allowed her to understand them? Some kind of translator chip?

Why are you doing this? Madison called out. What do you want with us?

Silence, slave.

Slave? A rush of cold fear swept over her from head to toe. What do you mean, slave?

The alien ignored her. Maybe he couldn’t understand her after all. Or maybe he just didn’t care.

Once all the women had been chipped, the alien left. He didn’t give them a second look. Clearly, this was business as usual.

Madison slumped against her cage bars. She couldn’t stop the tears from spilling down her cheeks. How had everything gone so wrong, so fast?

She glanced toward the wide windows at what she assumed was the front of the ship. Nothing was visible through the windows. Not stars, or planets, or anything. It was all just a sea of empty black.

Madison? Sophi’s voice shook slightly as she spoke. What do you think they want with us?

Madison turned to the blonde woman in the cage to her right. The woman’s long legs looked uncomfortably scrunched in the small space.

Madison glanced around briefly before she spoke. None of the aliens was looking. He called me slave. Do you think that means they’re going to make slaves out of us?

Sophi shrugged, but her expression showed she was scared it might be true. Madison hoped she’d just been reading too much sci-fi, but why else would the aliens want them? The aliens weren’t on any diplomatic mission if they’d snatched all the women off the beach and thrown them in cages. And all the humans were women. That bothered her. Were they to be sex slaves? Breeding stock? Sold on some kind of intergalactic market?

Sophi let out a long, ragged breath. Why us?

Madison shook her head bleakly. One of the other women a few cages down started crying. Sophi pulled her long legs out from under her, pressed her feet against the door of the cage, and began kicking as hard as she could.

Shh, Madison said. They might hear you.

Sophi gave one last kick that sent her foot banging into the cage wall. She sucked in a breath and