Page 1 of Taking Jenny (Planet Orhon #4)

Jenny

T he day my sister Sarah vanished right in front of me, I thought it had to be a government conspiracy. A kidnapping. A glitch in reality. Something explainable.

It wasn’t. She didn’t vanish. She was transported—beamed up, quite literally—onto a spaceship. And somehow, that wild truth had become a part of my own reality, as well.

I used to love conspiracy conventions, especially watching people cosplay as aliens with their foil hats and green body paint.

It was fun. A joke, even. Not that I wasn’t open to the possibilities—my other sister Elizabeth liked to say I was too open-minded—but aliens were never something I really believed in.

Not until they came for us.

Elizabeth and I were taken aboard a ship headed for a microplanet called Halla, where Sarah had been living all this time. Turns out she didn’t disappear. She’d relocated.

When the Ladrians—the alien species who’d brought us aboard their spaceship—first revealed themselves, I couldn’t stop staring in fascination at how different they were from humans.

Elizabeth was more suspicious, but even she eventually warmed up to them.

They weren’t threatening. If anything, they’d been thoughtful and kind, like they didn’t want to frighten us.

Dr. Ode, the ship’s physician, gave us an injection that embedded their foreign language directly into our minds.

Within minutes, we were speaking fluent Ladrian.

It was unsettling how easily it happened, but understanding their words made it easier to understand their purpose.

We were here on their planet to help our sister, Sarah.

And somewhere along the way…I started to like it here. Elizabeth, though, not so much.

The Ladrians were stunning. Tall and elegant, with opalescent skin that shimmered with iridescence and graceful tails that gave them an almost feline fluidity.

The men especially had classically handsome features: strong jaws, high cheekbones, expressive eyes in shades of violet and gold.

The women were beautiful too. Curvy like human women, just taller and more regal.

But true to form, I mostly paid attention to the alien men.

Ladrian males had physiques that made human gym rats look underdeveloped.

Broad shoulders. Powerful arms. Their uniforms were always rolled up to their elbows, showing off thick, sinewy forearms that made me stare longer than I should have.

Their hair flowed down the backs of their necks in a strip that seemed to continue along their spines and tails, like a sleek, alien version of a horse’s mane.

I hadn’t seen any of them fully undressed yet, but the way their uniform puffed slightly along that line made me suspect I was right. They were huge everywhere.

And then there was Tiger. The second I saw him, something shifted inside of me, an immediate awareness and attraction settling low in my belly.

His skin was darker than others. A rich, metallic gray that gleamed with hints of deep purple, like a black pearl in sunlight.

His hair was black with a sheen of blue when the light hit it just right and his eyes glowed a warm honey-gold when he smiled.

He was massive, nearly two feet taller than me, and when he brushed past me in the hallway, I had to crane my neck to meet his gaze.

One look from him sent a thrill through me I couldn’t explain.

I was gone for him. Just…gone.

Naturally, I wanted to know everything about him, so I started questioning Jac, Tiger’s boss and one of Sarah’s companions.

Tiger’s last name was Orne, and he’d recently lost his cousin, Kapok, during a battle that had involved my sister, Sarah, as well.

According to Jac, Tiger was sharp, kind, and endlessly observant.

I’m sure Jac said other things too, but I didn’t hear them.

I was too busy watching Tiger work on Jac’s spaceship, Sovereign .

His hands moved with purpose—deft, skilled, and confident. I could have watched him for hours.

And maybe that’s why I did something so reckless, because I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to Tiger, not yet. Heart pounding, pulse wild, I crept into one of Sovereign’s tiny crew cabins and closed the door quietly behind me.

Somehow, unbelievably, no one had noticed I’d snuck aboard.

He was leaving to take Elizabeth back to Earth before continuing on to Orhon, a planet near Halla.

It would be his first official spying mission, ordered because the king of Orhon—or whoever he was—was likely going to be furious once he learned that my sister’s friends had killed the tyrant, Rex Terian, who used to rule one of the nearby planets.

Sarah needed intel on what the king planned to do next.

It sounded dangerous and thrilling and I wanted in on the excitement. That was me, always up for an adventure.

I didn’t care about returning to my old life.

Not like Elizabeth who couldn’t wait to get back to the normalcy of Earth.

She was a nurse at a good hospital with people who depended on her.

I understood why she couldn’t just walk away from a job like that.

But me? I was a barista at a cozy little pop-and-pop coffee shop.

I’d miss my bosses—Rob and Jeff were the sweetest couple I’d ever met—but they’d understand.

If I ever had the chance to explain where I’d disappeared to.

They loved hearing about my escapades. I had fun telling them, too. But this particular one? This might have to stay a secret.

Just like the fact that I was currently stowed away on a spaceship.

I already felt like a spy, pressing my ear to the door as Elizabeth and Tiger boarded. She was nervous. I heard it in her voice—tight and wary. My older sister had always been cautious around men, like she expected danger in every shadow.

“So…how long have you been doing this?” she asked, her voice apprehensive and her footsteps hesitant.

“Around five years now, I think,” Tiger said in that smooth, rich Ladrian voice of his. “Watch your step there.”

I heard a stumble and then her sheepish, “Thanks. Um, you know how to get to Earth?”

“I’ve made this trip several times, Elizabeth,” he said patiently. “You don’t need to worry.”

“Right. It’s just that…I don’t really know you.”

“You didn’t know Deacon either before you boarded his ship,” he gently pointed out of our initial ride to Halla.

She let out a nervous laugh. “True. But there were more of you Ladrians on that trip. If something went wrong, I knew I could call for help.”

A pause stretched before he replied, “What do you mean?”

“You know, if one of his men had been inappropriate, someone else could’ve stepped in.”

“Why would Deacon’s men be inappropriate?” he asked, sounding confused, especially considering Deacon’s high position of power on Halla. He was also one of Sarah’s companions.

“Because when some men get a woman alone, they do…terrible things,” she said, exasperated.

“I don’t follow.”

“ Assault, Tiger,” she said sharply. “Sometimes men assault women when they’re alone with them. That’s why I avoid being alone with men I don’t know. So yeah, I’m nervous around you.”

“I…You think…” He sounded horrified and completely flustered. “Oh gods, I could never—I’ll stay in the cockpit for the whole flight. You can go wherever you want on the ship. I won’t bother you.”

Then his footsteps retreated, fast and furious.

It hadn’t even occurred to him—until she spelled it out. His reaction made me pause. Was he really that naive?

He must’ve been. And maybe younger than he looked?

It was impossible to guess a Ladrian’s age.

They all looked like immortal warriors sculpted by starlight.

But whatever his age, I found it…sweet. And honestly, reassuring.

Maybe things like that didn’t happen as often in Ladrian culture.

Maybe they didn’t grow up learning to fear each other in that way.

I stretched out on the oversized bed in the cabin—well, Ladrian -sized, which made it perfect for starfishing—and let my mind drift.

So much had changed so quickly and it was a lot to process. Sarah was now queen of Halla and led an elite force of priestess warriors known as conduits. They could see and speak to ghosts. A fact I’d once dismissed as superstition…until I finally confessed to my siblings that I saw them too.

Elizabeth had admitted the same.

According to our mother and Sarah, our ghost-seeing abilities came from our father’s bloodline—a man none of us had ever met.

I’d always thought he didn’t want us, but the truth was more complicated.

While our mother had been human, our father was a Ladrian, and his family was dangerous. He’d stayed away to protect us.

After everything that had happened since Deacon’s crew arrived on Earth and turned our world upside down, I needed rest and sleep found me quickly.

When I woke, the ship had landed.

Peeking out the window, I recognized the neighborhood—Elizabeth’s house, my beat-up Jeep still parked in front from the night we met the Ladrians.

We’d just sat down to dinner when they’d knocked on her door.

I imagined the sausage and rice was rotting on her kitchen table by now, though I had no idea how many days had passed on Earth.

Time flowed differently on Halla. My sister Sarah said she’d been there for only a few months, but for us, she’d been gone a full year.

Elizabeth said her goodbyes loudly, almost as if Tiger hadn’t walked her to the door of the ship and was honoring his word to keep his distance. As soon as the hatch whooshed closed and Sovereign lifted off again, my pulse kicked up. This was it. No turning back.

I didn’t want to reveal myself until we were far from Earth.

I was afraid Tiger might tell Sarah, and Sarah would demand I be brought back—especially if we were still close enough to turn around.

My sisters were protective, and Sarah had enough on her plate without me sneaking onto covert missions, but I loved adventure and spending time alone with Tiger was an added bonus.

So I waited. Two hours into the flight, I slipped out of the bedroom, my bare feet silent on the floor. I didn’t want to scare him…but there was really no non-scary way to suddenly appear on someone’s spaceship when they thought they were alone.

I crept to the cockpit, heart pounding. Tiger sat at the controls, his gaze focused on the starlit view outside the ship’s main window.

His black uniform hugged his frame like it had been painted on, and despite the situation, I couldn’t help noticing the way his shoulders flexed with every tiny adjustment he made to the ship’s console.

But then I looked past him—out the window—and everything else fell away.

Stars. Nebulas. Clouds of pink and lavender gas swirling in the black. The endless curve of a ringed planet, glowing in the distance. Space stretched out like an infinite dream, and I was completely swept away by the beauty of it all.

“It’s so pretty,” I breathed.

Startled by my voice, Tiger jumped. Hard. He slammed his knee into the dashboard and some Ladrian expletive popped out of his mouth. Clutching his leg, he spun around, wide-eyed as he stared at me.

“Stars above, what are you doing here?!”