Page 4 of Chieftain (The Outlander Book Club… in Space! #1)

Emmy

My first thought was that one of the girls got turned around in the night and mistook my mouth for a bathroom.

The bitterness on my tongue was dry, stinging the membranes, and I gagged, but my stomach only gave an empty lurch.

My eyelids fluttered, aching at the brightness that swallowed me—like I existed in the light hovering over our campsite, untethered to the Earth.

But I wasn't at the camp. The surface on which I lay was slick, hard, and cold.

My body felt strange. There was no pain, just an odd feeling akin to spinning really fast and jerking to an immediate stop.

Something was wrong—although I couldn't pinpoint any particular discomfort.

Forcing my eyelids open, I blinked away profuse moisture while trying to focus. Everything was white—stark, dazzling white. It made my skin even paler, and the hair that hung over my shoulder….

Wait.

What?

Lying on my side, I lifted a hand, giving the coppery curls flowing over my shoulder a sharp tug, immediately feeling the ache on my scalp.

What the actual fuck?

My hair hadn't been this long since I was in my twenties. I still had curls, but I wore my hair cropped at my shoulders since my first son was born. Not to mention my original rich red color faded ages ago into a rosy blonde. I twisted the curl around my hand…

My hand!

Sitting upright, I brought the back of my hands close to my face, noticing the paleness of my skin wasn't from the light but from the skin itself. The age spots and crepey texture had disappeared, and my hands looked as plump and rosy as a baby's ass.

What the fuck?

Curiosity hampered the general ickiness rolling around my stomach, and I surveyed my surroundings, looking for a mirror.

The room was all white, save for what looked like silver metal tape along the edges of the floor and walls. There was an odd-looking bowl and faucet, plus what appeared to be a twin bed—just a shelf jutting outward from the wall with a thin pad on top. I didn't see a door.

Pushing to my feet, I took stock of my body as best as possible without a mirror. My hiking outfit—Levi's, t-shirt, and flannel vest were replaced by a pair of loose pants and a shirt. I would have thought they were surgical scrubs, save that the fabric looked and felt like shimmery tan silk.

My legs and feet held the same youthful glow as my arms. Standing, I could gauge the entire length of my hair, which fell to the middle of my back. Not to mention climbing to my feet wasn't accompanied by the usual arthritic aches and twinges.

Holy shit!

A faint whoosh drew my attention just as a panel appeared and slid open in the middle of the far wall.

A woman fell through the opening, dressed in the same odd scrubs, the fabric making her slide a few inches when she hit her knees.

Even so, I could see the defined muscles in her arms and thighs.

Thick brown hair waved about her shoulders, and when she raised her face toward me, I noticed a faint tan making her blue eyes pop in a face not touched by the wear of age.

I knew those eyes.

"Willa?"

I took a tentative step forward, not trusting my own mind. Surely this was a dream, but the sting of the cold metallic floor against my foot felt painful. On impulse, I pinched the inside of my elbow, gasping—I didn't know what the hell this was, but it was no dream.

"Emmy?" Willa's voice contorted with shock. But it was her voice. The same voice I recalled told me to hold on when we spun up into the bright white light.

I staggered over to where she sat, dropping to my knees. My fingertips went to her cheek. Her skin was warm, growing even warmer under my touch. There wasn't a blemish or wrinkle on her beautiful face.

"You look like you're thirty," I said with a laugh, simply because I had no clue what emotion I should be feeling.

Willa's blue eyes narrowed as her gaze swept over me. "You look like you're twenty-five."

We fell into each other's embrace—laughing, crying—generally falling apart because, well, what the hell else was a person supposed to do upon discovering they'd de-aged forty years.

"What happened?" I finally squeaked, wiping moisture from my cheeks with the back of my hands.

"And where the hell are we?" Willa asked, rising to her feet. She stopped short and did a few quick squats. "My knees haven't felt this good in thirty years."

"Where are the others, do you think? The doorway that opened for Willa disappeared into the wall again. I rose to my feet, easily and gracefully—that hadn't happened in forever.

"Probably having done to them what was done to us," Willa frowned, pacing the room's circumference.

"Is that a bad thing?" I asked, giving a shimmy. Damn, I felt good.

"Well, since we don't know exactly what was done." Willa sighed, slamming her hand against the wall.

"Government experiment?" I suggested joining her in running my hands over every seam of the cold metal wall, looking for an escape.

"Are you serious?" Willa snorted. "Do you think this kind of technology exists on Earth with the Kardashians knowing about it?"

"True that," I chuckled. Laughter was better than screaming. My father always taught me that the crazier the situation, the calmer you remained to survive.

We met in the middle and sat on the bed. For a thin mattress, it was surprisingly comfortable.

"Maybe not the government, but what about pharmaceutical research?" I suggested. "Remember that case a few years back where big pharma was accused of kidnapping homeless people for research?"

Willa's lips twisted, indicating she didn't believe my theory was correct. "Don't think I'm crazy…"

"I'm sitting here talking to my best friend, who looks like she went back in time thirty years, and you're worried about my thinking anything you say is crazy?" I huffed.

Willa rolled her eyes, then her expression slowly turned sheepish. "What if we were kidnapped by aliens?"

The laugh burst from me, so suddenly I spat a little. "You're right. I do think you're crazy. Aliens?" I snorted. "What about Bigfoot?"

"I believe in them, you know." She gazed at me from under lowered brows. "I just never said anything because I worried what everyone would think—rightly so."

I nudged her with my elbow. "We're a group of gals who basically worship a fictional book where a 20th-century woman goes back in time and falls in love with an 18th-century Highlander. You should never worry about what we would think."

Willa's laughter echoed off the walls.

"Why do you believe in aliens?" I scooted backward to sit propped against the wall.

She copied my movement. "You know my dad was a Navy commander, right?"

"Sure, just like Mark." At my mention of her husband's name, her eyes grew soft.

"I didn't mention that my dad's ship ran drills through the Bermuda Triangle.

" The tremble that ran through her made the mattress shake.

"He saw things. Things that bothered him.

My father wasn't an imaginative man," Willa chuckled.

"If you asked him to describe a sunset, he'd say it was red or orange—that's it.

So, when he told us in vivid detail about the spaceships and creatures he saw—creatures he had contact with. I knew it was the truth."

Goosebumps tickled my skin. "What kind of creatures."

"Different kinds," she shrugged. "Some looked humanoid, Dad said—some didn't. The one thing he said they had in common was that they weren't friendly."

"Shit," I whispered, a knot of dread settling in the center of my stomach. "What do we do."

"I don't know." Willa's voice trembled.

In all the alien stories I'd ever read or seen, kidnapped humans ended up one of three ways—slaves, dissected, or food. None of the above was my choice.

I was no stranger to the wickedness of life.

Being a prosecutor, I'd stared into the face of evil and depravity more times than I could count.

At least twice I'd had a gun pointed at me, not knowing whether or not death lurked nearby.

Willa's father might have been Navy, but mine was a cop, one of the good ones—and he didn't raise a coward. I would not be a victim.

"I tell you what we're going to do." I linked my arm through hers and laid my head on her shoulder. "We'll find the other girls and figure out how to get the hell back home. Then you're all coming with me when I shake my youthful ass right in Rick's face just so he can see how good it looks."

Willa's laughter was cut off at the whoosh of the door opening.

She had four boobs.

At least, I think it was a she. The creature was over seven feet tall and, to my mind, looked like a hairless cat with human-shaped legs and arms—tail and all.

The eyes were bright green with black diamond-shaped vertical slits, and the lips were cat-shaped and full, resting atop a pair of needle-sharp canines.

Pointed gray ears poked through slick black hair that appeared plastic, like the old-fashioned Ken dolls.

The alien wore green and purple robes covering all of its body save for its face, hands, and chest.

"She's got four tits," Willa hissed at me.

"I noticed," I said drolly. "Your dad never mentioned cat people, did he?"

Willa shook her head, eyes assessing the alien.

"Greetings, humans," the alien said in a distinctly feminine voice.

Willa and I glanced at each other blankly. The cat-woman spoke English, with an odd accent, but English.

"You feel well. Yes." The alien held something like a shiny black iPad with a hand reminiscent of a cat's paw, except the pads were extended, more finger-like.

"Where are we?" Willa scooted to the edge of the mattress. "Where are our friends."

"You are with us," the creature said, cocking her head.

"Who is us?" I slid off the bed, immediately regretting it when my feet hit the ice-cold floor. "What did you do to us."

"We healed you."

"Healed us?" Willa parroted. "I was sixty-four years old this morning, and now I'm…" she gestured at her body.