GalacticFlame

Galactic Flame

Mel
Teshco

Book 3 in the Alien Hunger series.

Eden isn’t meant to be the alien
prince’s life mate; it’s her
sister
who’s been promised to him. But when
Genesis comes to Earth and mistakenly believes Eden is his mate, she knows it’s
the perfect opportunity to play the role her sister never wanted. And when she
steps into the magnificent alien’s arms, and is taught unimaginable carnal
pleasure, Eden knows she’s filched a priceless prize indeed.

A
Romantica®
futuristic erotic romance
from Ellora’s Cave.

Galactic Flame

Mel Teshco

Chapter One

Eden Mearwon sat back on her knees, swiping an unruly strand
of flame-red hair from her eyes that’d escaped its haphazard topknot. And all
the while she tried not to think about how this day might end.

Today was her sister’s twenty-fifth birthday. But Eden was
in no mood to celebrate. She couldn’t pretend everything was going to be all
right, not while giving into the helpless contemplation that soon—today,
tomorrow, a week, a year?—her sister, Aline, would be taken from her.

Beautiful, blonde, increasingly bad tempered Aline, all but
locked in the house as though a tiger in a cage. Their parents were doing
everything in their power not to lose their precious first-born, even just for
a little while.

It didn’t make it any more bearable.

Unable to stand it any longer, Eden had escaped the strained
atmosphere with the pretext of picking some of the
lekkle
fruit that
were ripening in the far gardens.

She’d barely been noticed leaving. She, the second daughter,
was safe from abduction.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out it was only a matter
of time before her sister’s intended arrived from his planet and took Aline
away from everything and everyone who loved her, no matter the precautions
taken.

Eden shivered. With no surviving males on Earth and most of
the few remaining females taken by aliens back to their planet,
Carèche,
Eden still secretly dreamed of being with a man, having him love her in just
the same way her parents openly loved one another. But she’d put a stake
through the heart of anyone who expected her to give up everything she’d known
for the “cause”.

Repopulation without adoration. It was barbaric. Inhuman.

Alien.

She could only pray that Aline would come to love her alien
male, in just the same way their human mother had come to love their alien
father. Except, her sister made no bones about the fact she’d despise her
intended. Eden might love her plants, but Aline had a way with animals that
went beyond extraordinary, she’d never leave them behind.

Eden clasped her gold chain, her fingers stroking the
familiar lotus pendant that sat in the hollow of her throat. Her only hope was
that Lillian, the human who’d once lived on Earth and who was now queen to
Carèche’s
three kings, had never borne a son. A son who had been promised as Aline’s
future intended.

Bloody unlikely.

It was unreasonable that Aline as firstborn should have to
honor a pact made by their parents to alien royalty long before she was even
born. A pact that gave their parents freedom to stay on Earth as long as their
first daughter married the first royal son of
Carèche.

With a sigh, she brushed her dirty hands over her already
stained jeans. Lifting her face, she closed her eyes, absorbing what was left
of the day’s weak winter sunlight filtering through the eucalyptus foliage. She
couldn’t lose herself in the solace of her garden forever.

Her eyelids fluttered open. It was beyond time to head back
home.

She turned to her shaggy dog and whistled her over. She
could only be thankful the alien plants they’d cultivated had vastly prolonged
her loved one’s lives—including their family dog. Bonnie had been her mum’s
constant companion when the Earth’s population had been all but decimated. Now
the loyal dog shadowed her and Aline instead.

“We’d better get home, girl,” she said, stroking Bonnie’s
silky ears, “before someone realizes I’m actually gone.”

She climbed to her feet, digging her bare toes into the dirt
with a luxurious sigh. Then using her shirt like a pouch, she plucked some
egg-shaped
lekkle
fruit from between its spray of long, spiky leaves the
color of lavender. After having grown up eating and tending to these plants and
many others, she had to remind herself they were once foreign to this planet.

Almost all the alien plants contained many more nutrients
than anything edible on Earth. As well as increasing longevity, they greatly
enhanced healing. Even her mother’s once inability to conceive had been
restored. Shame her mum hadn’t known that fact before she’d made the promise to
give away one of her children.

Whatever. It would be small consolation for Aline.

Eden stroked the lightly furred skin of one of the fruits.
In all her life she’d had no memory of falling ill, not even with the once
apparently common cold humans had suffered from.

Yeah, but then I’m not wholly human
.

Eden stilled, pressing a hand to her brow. She felt…weird,
disorientated by the blanket of sensation moving over her. Perhaps she
was
finally coming down with something?

Her senses hummed, her skin breaking into goose bumps though
a hot flush swept through her body. Some sixth sense warned her to leave, to
get back to the house. But as if moving through a thick fog, she instead slowly
turned.

Bonnie’s hackles rose, the dog growling even before Eden
truly comprehended she wasn’t alone.

Oh Aline, no.

The
lekkle
thudded unnoticed to the ground. A wave of
despair at losing her sister rendered her weak, giddy, even as the bare-chested
alien leaned nonchalantly against a giant red gum.

She couldn’t tear her eyes away from him—the stranger whose
alien genetics she partly shared. If sunsets were a measure of beauty, then he
was a crimson and gold sky framing the midnight blue of a deep sea. And though
fathomless, his stare was a many shades lighter blue, measuring her, drinking
her in. Inhaling her.

Breath shuddered from her lungs, while oddly, pleasant
sensations fluttered within, fighting off horror.

Aline’s intended—not hers!

She shook her head, forcing her muscles to cooperate as she
took a step backward. “Leave me alone.”

You want Aline, not me.

He straightened, so very tall, much taller than her five
foot ten. Strands of his longish, dark-gold hair fluttered in the late
afternoon breeze. “The time has come. We belong together, Princess. You know
this.”

Princess?
Her eyes narrowed. He thought she was
Aline? She bit back sudden, hysterical laughter. The prince of
Carèche
thought
she was his soon-to-be intended!

As sisters, she and Aline were as different from each other
as a white rose was to a red-flowering weed. If the alien only knew his mistake
he’d be running fast from her in search of his intended.

Her hands fisted. “Go. Fuck. Yourself.”

She expected anger, displeasure. Even disappointment.
Instead she got husky, spine-tingling laughter as his head tipped back, the
sound reverberating all the way to her toes and back before stalling her heart.
Her dignity.

“You think this is funny?” she hissed. His laughter fading
and his attention reclaimed, she tilted her chin and marched forward a half
dozen steps. “Can you not think of anyone beyond yourself?”

An implacable expression settled across his face. Her vision
blurred into shades of red. She gritted her teeth, unable to quell the all too
familiar rage and anxiety within. These were the emotions that had grown from
the moment she’d been old enough to learn her sister—her only friend—would be
taken from her.

“You come to my planet, force my sis—” She swallowed back
the words that would give away her real identity, even as an undoubtedly stupid
plan formed and couldn’t be denied. “Myself from everyone I love, all the while
safe in the knowledge that you’ll be returning to your people.”

His silence added fuel to her fire. Her eyes narrowed. “And
what about love and affection? Friendship, even?”

“I believe we will be good together.”

As encouragement went his words left a hell of a lot to be
desired.

She stabbed a finger at him, putting herself in Aline’s
shoes. “Well who asked me? No one! I was never given the choice to make.”

“Finished, Princess?” he asked gently.

“Not by a long shot!” She took another step forward, all the
while forcing her stare away from his tight-fitting pants that clung lovingly
to his well-endowed parts. Her eyes narrowed. She mentally reinforced the fact
the alien was the first man other than her father that she’d seen, so of course
she’d be looking hard!

Shame his kind had unwittingly brought the virus that’d
wiped all human males off the Earth. Her chin tilted. “I. Am. Not. Going.
Anywhere. With. You.”

And neither is my sister.

So caught up in her tirade, in the emotions left too long
unexpressed, she never anticipated the alien would take the final step that’d
bridge the gap between them. Never expected him to sweep her off her feet and
take effortless strides in the opposite direction to where she lived.

This can’t be happening.

Her parents had predicted the mothercraft would soar across
the heavens, giving them at least a little warning of Aline’s impending doom.
But to be taken like this, without any indication aside from her sister’s
coming of age. It was mercenary.

“Put me down!” she gasped, kicking and wriggling. But in his
powerful grip her struggles were pathetic at best. “You don’t need to do this.”
She looked up at his face, but any of the softness she’d earlier glimpsed had
become hard, unforgiving lines. She bit back a sob. “Surely you have someone
else back on your planet?”

He pulled her harder to his unyielding chest, expression
unreadable. When he looked down, arrogance and perhaps a touch of satisfaction
was the only emotion she could read from his brilliant eyes. His dark-honey
lashes swept low. “You’ve had twenty-five years to prepare for this day.”

Tell him now! Tell him who you really are!

Only the memory of Aline’s faraway stare that very morning,
along with her taut, pale face as she’d tried desperately to hide her terror,
stopped the words from pouring forth. Eden glared. “More like twenty-five years
to resist this day.”

Bonnie trotted at the alien’s heels, seemingly immune to the
fact her mistress was in trouble as the alien replied drily, “And you’ll easily
have ten counts over that time to remind me.”

“So that’s it then?” she said dully. “You kidnap me—you and
your alien comrades—and I just allow it?”

Nightfall loomed as he strode into a clearing. She
stiffened. A round aircraft, little bigger than her bedroom, lay in wait.

The alien’s white teeth glinted in the growing darkness.
“Rest assured, I may have kidnapped you, but my alien comrades don’t play any
part in your capture.”

She swallowed back a surge of hope. “So…you’re alone?”

He nodded. “That’s right.”

Relief thundered through her. There was hope of escape. She
just needed to use her wits, her feminine wiles, if need be. “Your friends
aren’t waiting in the mothership?”

He frowned. “No. It isn’t needed for this mission.”

It wasn’t?

“Put me down?” she requested again, trying not to notice his
musky, too male scent. “Please.”

She withheld a relieved sigh as he placed her onto her feet.
Bonnie immediately sat beside her and looked up with an uncertain whine. Eden
absently scratched the top of Bonnie’s shaggy head, reassuring her.

She cleared her throat and asked, “So none of your alien
friends know if I’m even alive?” Her lips twitched into a confident smile. “You
can go back to your people—alone. Tell them the mission couldn’t be completed—”

She yelped as the alien jerked her close, a large hand
clamping over her mouth and cutting off further talk. “No more words,” he
growled. “You’re coming with me. We leave now.”

Bonnie circled them, intermittently barking. The alien
ignored the dog. All his attention was consumed by his “intended”.

Eden looked up. His beautiful, hard face all but swam above
hers in the semidarkness. But it was the feral, intense light in his eyes that
scared her most. Surely that was why her breath shuddered and heart thudded
against her ribs?

Bonnie’s bark subsided into the silence that seemed thick
around them, but somehow it only made the fear dig all the harder into the pit
of her belly.

“You can come willingly,” he added, “or I can use force.
Your choice.”

When she sagged in his hold, he removed his hand and she
said bitterly, “Bet you wish you could brainwash me. Shame it doesn’t work on
half-species.”

Aliens could influence the mind of full-blooded humans. She
could only conjecture how many Earth women had imagined themselves in lust with
the alien men when in reality they were being shamelessly manipulated.

“It is a shame, yes. It would make things a whole lot easier.”
He jerked his head toward the craft. “After you…Princess.”

She glared. If only he knew Aline was the intended princess,
not her. Perhaps she would tell him the truth—right before she exchanged vows
with him. Her smile was all on the inside as she took a moment to enjoy the
spot of malice before she relented with a stiff nod.

But as they headed to the craft, Bonnie growled, computing
her mistress was indeed in trouble. Eden stilled. “Wait.” Removing her pendant
chain, she crouched and clasped it around Bonnie’s neck. “My family will know
I’ve gone now.” She bit into her bottom lip. “Goodbye, old girl. Look after
everyone for me.”

Pain cut through her insides. She wasn’t ever going to see
her family again. But at least her mum and dad would still have Aline. At least
her sister wouldn’t be forced into a match she’d never wanted. And at least
they’d all still have Bonnie.

She straightened, refusing to cry. “Let’s go.” Somehow she
forced back fear and anxiety and trudged forward.

There was no point prolonging their departure. Even if it
was possible to escape, he’d find her again. Only the next time, it would
undoubtedly be her sister he’d take once he realized her deception.