Page 14 of I Got Abducted by Aliens and Now I’m Trapped in a Rom-Com (Cosmic Chaos #1)

Muffled voices pulled me out of my sleep. Pain raced up my side when I moved to rise, and I gasped before giving up on getting up and rolling to my back.

“You ever just wanna bite somebody?” I recognized Toto’s voice and tried to blink away the rest of my sluggishness. I was trapped in a wooden cage just big enough to sit up in. Straw lined the flooring, with tufts of it bunched together around the entrance, showing the aftermath of my capture in the form of drag marks along the dirt. The room was bare, save for the other cages and a hanging rack on the far side of the room. Outside I could hear muffled voices speaking in Sankado. Toto was in the cage to my right, half sprawled out on his side as he chatted with the occupant of the next cage.

The annoyed voice of a woman piped in. “No, strange talking lion. I’ve never been struck with the urge to bite someone.”

“Well, if you’re going to be judgmental, I’ll shut up.”

There was a pause followed by a long-suffering sigh. “I’m sorry. Continue.”

“It’s like an intrusive thought. Ya know?”

I snorted, finally managing to raise my head. “Toto, you’ve never had an intrusive thought in your life. You just have a thought and then act.”

“Oh, Dory, you’re alive!” The lion padded over to the wall of wooden bars that separated our cages and rubbed his body against them.

I reached out and petted his mane. “I’m so glad you’re all right. What happened to you? Are Sol and the others okay?”

“Really?” the feminine voice asked. “You wake up in a cage and the first thing out of your mouth isn’t ‘why the fuck am I in here’?”

My body groaned in protest, but I ignored it and struggled to sit up to where I could finally see the last cage. In it sat a dark-skinned woman with a purple Afro and a cat eye so immaculate I got the deep sense that I could trust her with my life. She wore a white tank top with black jeans and dark purple boots with an excessive array of spikes. Claw marks littered one of her pant legs, and I could see her leg had dried blood on it as well. Silver chains rattled below the tattoo of a fanged animal skull that spanned her throat. Long red nails drummed along her knee as she eyed me curiously. “Are you real, or am I having the longest acid trip of my life?”

“Real as can be, unfortunately,” I said.

The woman tsked. “Positive? ’Cause I’m pretty sure I just spent the last few days wandering around a dinosaur zoo before getting snatched by some freakishly tall goat people. Then I get attacked by a lion who starts talking.”

“I did not attack you,” Toto hissed. “I just needed to lick your face so we could talk to each other.”

She blinked at him, then lifted her scratched-up leg.

“You kept struggling.”

She opened her mouth to speak, then just shook her head before turning to me. “Yeah…so as I was saying, all signs point to acid trip or hell.”

“What’s an acid trip?” Toto asked.

The woman grinned. “Come here and I’ll show you.”

“What?” I shouted, then reached through the bars to grab Toto’s tail before he could make his way over to her. “Are you crazy? Do not give the lion drugs!”

She rolled her eyes. “You got a better idea, Dory ? What kinda name is that anyway? Your folks super into Disney or something?”

“No, it’s from the mathematician at NASA. But whatever, that’s beside the point. Who are you and how did you get here? I thought I was the only one that escaped the ship.”

“Heh, yeah, not quite. My name’s Blair, and I saw you back on the ship running around like a chicken with your head cut off. All those bird freaks were so distracted they didn’t even notice me slip away. Didn’t plan on my pod crashing me in the middle of some pink flower field, though. The next day I got snatched by those goat bastards.”

“And they kept you in this cage the whole time?”

She nodded, then jerked a thumb to a neon-green punk rock jacket with various pins from bands I could only assume I wasn’t cool enough to recognize hanging on the wall. “Don’t suppose you’re wearing a belt? I’m trying to lasso my jacket to me, but mine’s not long enough. I’ve got a knife and revolver in there we can use to break out of here.”

“You have a gun?”

“I will once we get my jacket. So, what’s it gonna be? You got a belt or are we letting the lion trip on acid on the off chance he Hulk smashes his way through the bars?”

Toto’s eyes widened at her words. “Will the acid make me stronger?”

“Maybe.”

“NO!” I shouted, then glared at Blair. “We are not resorting to animal cruelty. Just give me a second to think.”

She let out an exasperated noise and crossed her arms. “Well, damn, girl, hurry up. They haven’t let me out for a break since they dragged that gray guy off, and that was hours ago . I have to pee.”

“I also have to pee,” Toto added.

A sudden boom shook the ground beneath me. Shouting followed the sharp screech of splintering wood. Through the doorway, I saw men armed with spears and arrows rushing toward the source of the disturbance. Discordant bellows vaguely reminiscent of enraged hippos during mating season sounded off after them.

Blair merely rolled her eyes at the display. Toto pushed his snout through the bars of his cage and gave the air a sniff but lost interest soon after and lay back down.

“So…anyone want to tell me what that was about?” I asked.

“Probably just another breach in the fence,” Blair said. “The place is surrounded by this megaherd of dinosaurs, and they keep knocking the fence over. You should have been here yesterday. A triceratops rolled in like a bull in a china shop and nearly gored somebody. It was good fun.”

Toto’s eyes lit up. “Oh, that does sound fun!”

“Yes,” I said slowly, eyeing my two bloodthirsty companions. “Who doesn’t love a good triceratops skewering? Wait, we’re getting distracted; go back. Blair, you said they dragged off a gray man. Toto, is Sol here?”

“Yeah, the Intern too. That giant crocodile thing chased us all the way to Fuchsia Grove, where the other gray men ambushed us. They don’t speak like your mates do, though.”

Blair quirked an eyebrow before sitting up a little straighter. “I’m sorry, her what ?”

“Her mates,” Toto said slowly. “You know, for the breeding program you were brought here for.”

Blair’s eyes grew as wide as dinner plates. “THE WHAT ?”

I took a moment to share with her what I knew of our situation. To say that she didn’t handle the news well was an understatement. Blair raged against the bars of her cage with enough ferocity to have Toto back himself into the corner farthest away from her. A white-haired man with long curved horns opened the door to our room to check on the commotion. Her boot met his face and he fell to his back. When another came to check on him, he was treated to a slew of colorful and creative insults.

“Blair, calm down,” I said, trying to get her attention over her hysterics.

Her freak-out was drawing the attention of more of the men outside. They dragged their unconscious friend away and tried speaking to her in hushed tones. Without the translator symbiont, none of us could understand them.

The men in the doorway made way for a newcomer who stood a head taller than the rest. He wore a mask of blue and reddish-orange lines that hooked over his curved horns. The mask added another pair of horns behind his natural set that curved toward each other to form a half circle pointing skyward. Elaborate yellow and orange tattoos raced up his forearms to create a circular pattern on his left biceps. The same markings on his tattoos repeated on the staff in his hand and the wrap he wore around his waist. A red arrow was tattooed on his neck, the same one Lok wore.

My heart leapt at the sight. If he was one of Lok’s men, maybe I had a shot at getting out of here alive. He waved off the onlookers and barked an order at a younger-looking man in nothing but a loincloth, who ran away to do whatever was asked of him.

“CALM DOWN?” she screeched. “We’ve been locked up by some evil goat bastards to pop out babies with FUCKING HORNS. HORNS, DORY! How would that even work, pregnancy-wise? Am I gonna be knitting a sweater for li’l baby Lamb Chop one day, only to have her stab my fucking spleen? No, I will not calm down.”

The tattooed man approached her calmly and attempted to place his hand on her cage, then snatched his hand away when Blair swung at him. She crouched low, muscles tensing, before she rammed herself against the bars. They creaked under her weight, and the sound was enough encouragement to spur her on. “I am not!”

Slam.

“Pushing out!”

Slam.

“A FUCKING GOAT BABY!” With the final slam, the bars finally caved, and she kicked the splintered wood out of the way. Before she could step outside the cage, a bolt of fire shot at her feet. Something akin to ice coated the air as we looked to the newest man standing in the doorway.

I noticed his eyes first, piercing blades of green that caused the hair on the back of my neck to stand on end. He wore plated armor along his shoulders, decorated in black-and-red patterns, with a feathered necklace adorning the bottom. The belt around his waist held the face of a four-eyed creature with razor-like teeth.

The tattooed man fell to his knees, forehead planted firmly on the ground in total submission. The green-eyed man ignored him completely and knelt before my cage. His sharp gaze raked over me, head to toe.

“Is your name Dory?” His voice was low and commanding. He held my gaze without blinking.

“Yes?” I said, voice wavering. “How can you understand me?”

“Check her Zhali.”

The tattooed man stood and approached me without a word. He tapped his staff twice on the ground and his tattoos began to glow. The light from them rose in his body to form a bright orb of orange gas in the center of the horns on his mask. With a light pop, the orb split into three. The center orb turned blue, while the remaining orange ones began to orbit around it.

The leader gave the display a passing glance before he tilted his head to the side and considered me. “Well. That’s interesting.” He looked me over again before scratching at his chin. “Bring him in.”

Two men dragged in a beaten and bloody Sol. His arms were tied behind his back. Muffled insults were gagged by the cloth in his mouth. The leader nodded to him. “Do you know that man?”

I swallowed thickly, unsure how to answer. His hand shot out, grabbed me by the throat, and pulled me flush against the bars of the cage. Sol thrashed, desperately trying to fight off the hands holding him still.

“Get your hands off her!” Blair yelled. She stole glances at her jacket on the wall but made no move to retrieve it.

The leader smiled, showing off gold fangs. “Hmm, he certainly knows you. Now, are you going to tell me the name of the man responsible for that second orb, or do I need to make this meeting even more unpleasant?”

Sol tried to shout something to me, but the words were lost against the gag. The leader flicked a hand, and his lackeys dragged Sol back out of the room.

“Wait, where are you taking him?”

“Asking questions before you answer my own?” The hand around my throat tightened. “I’m afraid that’s not how this works, Doll.”

“Do as he says, Dory,” Toto said flatly. There was no mirth in the proud lion’s words. Just a coldness that reflected how fucked I was.

My vision spotted as my lungs started to burn. “…Lok.”

No sooner had the name left my lips than he released my throat. I gulped in air greedily, then coughed and backed away from the bars. When I looked up, the leader was smiling.

“Now, see? That wasn’t so bad, was it?” He stood and addressed the tattooed man. “Bring me the Biwban.” He turned his attention back to me and pinned me with a stare so intense, goose bumps raced along my arms.

Bravado was never my strong suit, but I gave it a go anyway and did my best to fix him with a steely glare. “I answered your question. Now answer mine.”

He smirked. “So there is some fight in you.” He wagged a finger at me before pulling an empty cage over to sit on. “I like that. Hate to imagine the mighty General Ghoszi saddled to a simpering welp of a woman. So tell me, Doll, how is the bastard?”

“Sol?” I stressed.

“Right.” He chuckled. “You’ve got nothing to worry about, I promise. We may have had to be a little rough with him when he first got here, but that’s all over now.”

“And why is that?”

His eyes flashed. “Because you’re going to behave. Aren’t you, Doll? And to answer your previous question, your little Biwban friend explained everything after he pecked one of my hunters on the mouth. Naturally, when an alien bird and a man with a Zhali bond showed up on my doorstep, I had a few questions. Lucky for me, that little bird loves to sing.”

Dammit, just what did Intern tell him? “How…how do you know Lok?”

He put a hand over his chest and gasped. “He didn’t tell you about me? Oh, I’m so hurt.”

Awareness pricked at the edge of my mind and my eyes widened. “King Osid.”

My reaction seemed to amuse him. “Ah, so he did talk about me. And here I was thinking this grudge was one-sided.”

“He said you were dead.”

“I’m sure he said a lot of things. Never could keep his mouth shut, that one. Tell me, where is my favorite broken arrow?”

“He…Look, he doesn’t want to fight anymore—”

“I know,” the king interrupted. “I mean, at first I thought he was just ignoring me. He didn’t even have the courtesy to join in on the fun when we all landed here. Every remaining Sankado worth their salt dropped on a ripe new world and a power vacuum just wide enough for anyone willing to fill it. I thought for sure that would be enough to lure his sorry carcass from whatever rock he crawled under. Yet imagine how hurt I was when he never showed up. Not only that, I find out from one of his men that he renounced his title and abandoned his armor in a flower field. Then takes up yix herding of all things?” He leaned toward me; his gaze was ice. “But of course, it isn’t enough of a kick in the teeth for that bastard to flood my city, decimate my best war party, and fuck off to a life of leisure. No, on top of all that, he still gets the girl in the end? Now, that just doesn’t seem fair, does it?”

Before I could answer, the tattooed man returned with Intern in his arms. Despite all his annoyances, relief flooded me to see that the little guy was unhurt.

“Do it.”

The tattooed man dropped Intern, who flapped rapidly to avoid smacking into the ground as he landed. “You…you should know, there’s no guarantee on who she bonds with. She may not even bond with anyone here.”

There was a lethal calmness in the king’s eyes. “For your sake, you better hope she does.”

With shaking hands, he cast a worried glance at me before he pulled out his dart gun and shot Blair.

The purple-haired woman screeched, backing as far away from the bars as she could before ripping the dart out of her leg. “What the fuck is this? What did you do?”

A dark laugh brought my attention back to the man in front of me. I watched in horror as his horns began to grow. He smiled as he answered her but didn’t take his eyes off me. “Just leveling the playing field is all.”

Panic like I’d never known before welled in my throat. I smoothed my shaking hands down the front of my pants, letting my nails pinch at the skin underneath in the vain hope that the pain would be enough to distract my pulse from beating any louder.

“Nah, fuck this.” Blair stepped out of her cage and dusted hay from her pants. “The talking bird just mated me to someone I wouldn’t even swipe right on Tinder for. I’m out; I’m done.”

Intern pulled out an orange Tamagotchi covered in a beehive-type pattern. His beak fell open in shock when he turned it on. “Oh, that is low.”

“Did I give you permission to speak freely?” King Osid asked.

“Do I look like I give a damn?” Blair asked. “?’Cause I don’t.”

Intern chewed nervously on his finger as the Tamagotchi gave off an angry-sounding series of beeps. “Headquarters is not going to like this.”

Blair ignored him. “I don’t put up with men with mommy issues or overly dramatic dreams of vengeance.” She put a hand to her hip and cocked her head. “What did this man even do to you aside from handing you what you wanted? He left.” She stressed the last word with a clap of her hands. “That means you won your little war, so now you can go be king of all the other little goat people and leave us the fuck alone.”

“He doesn’t get to just walk away from me. Lokbaatar and I—”

She scoffed. “Scrape my ass with a cheese grater, just stop. Stop. It’s embarrassing for me to be with you right now.”

“What?” He chuckled.

“I don’t stutter. And if what they told me about this mating-bond thing is true, I’m probably stuck with you. That means your actions reflect on me. I have a brand to maintain and you are bringing it down right now.”

The orange Tamagotchi buzzed angrily, making Intern’s feathers stand on end. “It’s in the negative.” He looked between the pair with obvious panic before holding his hands up. “Now, Subject 12, you and your mate clearly got off on the wrong foot. Why don’t we both just sit down and—”

“SHUT UP!” the pair said in unison.

Blair took a confident step away from her cage and looked the king dead in the eye before crossing the room to her coat.

“And where do you think you’re going?” King Osid asked.

“I’m getting my jacket. Got a problem with that?” With a level of venom I’d only ever seen in a banded krait’s kiss, Blair swiped her jacket off the rack and put it on with a spin so she could look directly into his soul and hiss out, “This is the only warning I’m ever going to give you, mate . Never throw a fireball at me again.”

The king smirked as he stood to face her. His eyes raked boldly over her, before he spit a ball of fire past her face. The flames licked at Blair’s cheek before bursting against the wall behind her.

“You seem intent on testing my boundaries. So be it.” She reached into her coat, then flicked her wrist with a click.

Pop.

King Osid hissed in pain and brought a hand up to the side of his face. His eyes widened as his palm came back red. The tattooed man stumbled away from the spot where the bullet dug into the wall past the king’s head. “Now, that’s a neat little trick. What is that?”

“Conflict resolution,” Blair said, pointing the gun at him. “The next one’s going right between your eyes.”

High-pitched screeching broke through the air. Intern’s head whipped wildly between Blair and the bullet in the wall. His feathers fell flat against him as his screech morphed into a rushed cry. “Humans can hurt their mates?!” His rapid and shallow breaths echoed through the silence, punctuating the air with little gasps of panic.

“Damn right we can. Now, you, Osid, move out of my way.” Blair shoved past the stunned king, flipped the latch on my cage, and held a hand out to me. When I reached out and took the offered hand, she pulled me upright and clapped an arm around my shoulders, relaxing into my side as she fixed the men in the room with a confident grin. “You should be happy I was able to convince Little Miss Bloodlust over here it was worth hearing you sorry idiots out before we decided to leave. If she had it her way, you’d have been spending the day peeling your goons off the walls. Now, return her man to her before she decides to paint the town red.”

King Osid looked at his bloodied hand again before looking to the wall behind him in disbelief. He turned to one of his men and asked, “Didn’t I tell the druid to check their supplies for weapons?”

At his side, the tattooed man visibly tensed.

“This isn’t right,” Intern stammered. “This can’t be right. What hope do we have of successfully building breeding pairs if the humans can kill their mates?” The little bird called up his screen with shaking hands and frantically flipped through the pages of his notes. “There has to be something in here that explains this. None of the training modules mentioned anything about projectile defense mechanisms.”

Blair’s face scrunched in annoyance. “Why are you freaking out like you’ve never heard of domestic violence? Of course we can hurt people.”

“Not people,” he stressed. “Your mate! What kind of pair-bonding species is capable of this?”

“He shot fire at me,” Blair snapped. “Why aren’t you shocked about that?”

“ At you,” he said. “It never touched you.”

“So?”

He made a frustrated noise and wailed, “You were never in any danger! The fire didn’t touch you because it can’t. He can’t hurt you!”

Raising a fine arched brow, she turned back to the king. “Is that right? Well, unfortunately for you, dearest , my species doesn’t share the same compulsion.”

He held a hand up to her. “In a moment, darling. It seems like there was some kind of miscommunication with my orders.” He came beside Blair and leaned against the cage. Crossing his arms over his chest, he clicked his tongue as he scanned over the men in the room. “You see, when you first arrived here, I could have sworn I told my druid Sarek—that’s him there with the funny mask. Wave to my wife, Sarek.”

The druid raised a slow fidgeting hand and gave Blair a curt wave.

King Osid scratched his head. “So your ears do work. Odd.” He turned his attention to Blair and nudged her shoulder. “As I was saying, I could have sworn I told Sarek to check your items for weapons. Yet here we are. My only question now is, are my orders mere suggestions to be ignored at his convenience, or is that red arrow on his neck still clouding his mind?”

Quick as lightning, the king snatched the gun from Blair’s hand and shot Sarek. Blair and I screamed and backed away from the king. Toto snarled and retreated as far back as his cage would allow. The druid hit the ground with a pained cry and clutched at his leg.

King Osid turned the gun around in his hands, running his fingers over the cylinder before inspecting the trigger. “What a neat little toy.” Sarek moaned in pain, but the men around him made no move to help him. King Osid rolled his eyes and pushed himself off the cage before lazily crossing the room to squat in front of the bleeding Sarek. He stared at him for a moment before lifting the mask off Sarek’s face. The king tutted. “Pity, with all that moaning I thought I might have gotten a tear from you.”

Sarek’s face clouded with rage. He opened his mouth to speak but was cut off when the king shoved the barrel of the gun in his mouth. “Ah-ah. Before you go spouting off more of your nonsense, remember that the only reason that you still draw breath is that my last druid got himself eaten. Your talents for medicine are hard to come by. Not irreplaceable. Remember that the next time you get an idea for a half-baked assassination attempt.” King Osid removed the barrel from Sarek’s mouth and patted his cheek before standing. With a wave of his hand he said, “Get him out of my sight.”

My fingers dug into my sides as I watched two men drag Sarek out of the room without a word. I swallowed hard. If what Intern said was true about Sankado not being able to harm their mates, then that was great news for Blair. But I was still very much on the chopping block. And it was my mate he was after. From what Lok had described, King Osid was a power-hungry madman with no qualms about doing whatever needed to be done to get what he wanted.

The king turned to face us and offered an apologetic smile. “You’ll have to forgive the unpleasantness. Some men take to new management better than others.”

Blair curled her lip. “Yes, I too shove guns into the mouths of everyone who disagrees with me.”

Osid laughed. The blood dripped down his face and fell to the floor, mixing with the hay and dust beneath him. He took a step toward Blair and ran his knuckles against her cheek. “Oh, I like you. Your friend reads like an open book, but you, I can’t tell if you’re bluffing or ready to spill my guts on the floor.” The purple-haired woman went stone-faced as he traced the path his fire had nearly grazed, then turned his attention back to me.

There was a darkness in his eyes, a deep, festering rage that chilled my spine, but when he spoke, there was a lightness in his tone.

Like we were old friends.

Like he wasn’t contemplating the best way to rip my throat out.

And it terrified me.

The king stepped closer to me, and the hand that had just touched Blair went to my shoulder. He squeezed, digging his fingers into the meat around my collarbone until it was numb, confirming my suspicion that his inability to hurt us only extended to Blair. He smiled when I flinched, then leaned in to whisper, just loud enough for me to hear. “You have a fire in you that’s worth tapping. If I didn’t know better, I’d say that was Lok’s influence.”

His grip suddenly loosened, and he backed away. I rubbed at the bruise forming, watching him. “But fine. You caught me,” he told Blair. “Not even I’m a cold enough bastard to hurt such a pretty face.” He clapped a dark-haired man on the shoulder. “Volen, have the cook prepare a feast.”

“We’re not staying,” Blair said.

A smile pulled at his lips. “Oh, don’t be so hasty. A good meal is the least I can offer after treating my Zhali so terribly. Enjoy a nice dinner with my council while I chat with your friend. I have a proposition for her.”

“And why should we bother listening to anything you say?”

He chuckled, then glanced at Volen before nodding to Blair. “Cute, isn’t she?” The king spoke in a casual, jesting way. “It’s just as the bird said, love. I can’t hurt you. But I have well over two hundred men that don’t share the same compulsion.”