Ka'Cit's Haven: A Sci-fi Alien Romance (Riv's Sanctuary Book 3), A.G. Wilde [surface ebook reader TXT] 📗

crouched a little so she was on Nia’s eye-level and Nia frowned.

“I’m sorry,” she glanced behind the female and tried to head toward the closing door to no avail, “but I don’t think you understand me and the door is closing.”

The alien moved to block her path. “You’re not supposed to be here,” the alien said.

Nia gave the alien a tight smile. “No shit. That’s what I’ve been trying to say, but I guess you can’t understand me.” She glanced at the crewmen. Most were working, some were looking her way. “I guess they couldn’t understand me either. I’ll take this as a huge error and we can simply get on our separate ways.”

She moved toward the door again and this time, the alien woman placed a heavy hand on her shoulder.

“You!” The alien shouted to one of her crew. “What is this?”

The crew she spoke to glanced at another.

Nia still couldn’t see their faces properly.

“I’m talking to you, fool. What is this?”

“He was with us on the streets, my queen.”

Queen?

Nia eyed the female. Queen of this ship, maybe?

Riv and Sohut never mentioned their species having a queen, and she wasn’t quite sure a queen would be wearing skin-tight leather and working in what looked like a cargo ship.

“He?” She eyed Nia again. “Doesn’t look like one of you, does it now?”

The crew member shrugged and the alien female muttered under her breath. “Qeffing idiots.”

Nia’s eyes were on the door. The closer it came to closing, the more her panic grew, and she headed toward it again.

The alien female’s hand pressed into her shoulder, halting her movement.

“Hold it!” She popped something from her waist.

It looked like a cell phone, but Nia was sure that wasn’t what it was.

As the female pressed a button, a green light was emitted from the device and it moved over Nia’s face.

“Species unknown,” the device said.

The alien’s eyes focused on her again, and Nia tried to jerk her shoulder away from the alien’s grasp.

“I have to go.”

“Stay still…thing,” the female said, running the scanner again. “You aren’t leaving this ship. This thing picks up every life-form on this planet. Knows everyone, but it doesn’t know you… Why?”

Nia let out a breath.

She could feel danger looming right in front of her.

The door was almost closed now and even if she made it there on time, she wouldn’t be able to fit through the gap.

Just remain calm, Nia. Remain calm.

Lifting her wrist, she flashed the fake bracelet Riv had given her.

“Legal. See. Now release me.”

For a moment, the alien’s hold on her slackened, but then she grabbed the wrist with the bracelet instead.

“A resident here, are you?” She placed her scanner over the bracelet and Nia’s heart skipped a beat.

Shit.

It wasn’t going to scan.

It wasn’t going to frickin’ scan!

It took only a second before the alien looked back at her, a satisfied sort of look coming over her strange features.

Her nose was adorned with rings and the center of her bottom lip too. Even the tips of her elf-like ears had piercings as well.

The piercings moved as the alien grinned again, fangs flashing.

She wasn’t challenging her in any way. There was no need to flash fangs. But Nia realized quickly that, in this case, it may just be a show of dominance.

It was the first time she’d seen another of Riv and Sohut’s kind. Well, apart from that one time his friend, Ka’Cit, had visited, but she knew they had an issue with people showing them teeth.

They took it as a challenge.

For that reason, she tried to make her face impassive and averted her gaze.

She needed to get out of this quickly and pissing off the female wasn’t something she wanted to do.

“Fake identification…how curious.” The alien’s grip on her tightened and Nia knew right then that all hope for this to go smoothly was out the window.

Something told her the alien wasn’t going to let her go.

Without much of a warning, Nia twisted toward the alien and brought her other elbow down hard on the alien’s wrist.

It was a move her father had taught her, and she’d never had to use it before.

The alien female hissed in pain and released her just enough for her to make a run toward the doors.

There was a lever there she was sure would open it and once outside she was going to run like she had a million of Riv’s demon dogs chasing her.

But she never got that far.

“What are you looking at? Get the creature!”

One second she was running toward the door and another she was being knocked to the ground.

The frickin’ crewmen were fast. They held her arms and she was sure one of them was kneeling on her knees.

She couldn’t move.

“Please, this is just a mistake. Just let me go.”

She could hear the boss approach and soon, the dark leather boots were in front of her face.

“A language that’s not in the servers and a fake ID.” It sounded like the female giggled. “This has got to be my lucky day. Lock her up in one of the cells. I think hiring more of you had not been wasteful credits after all. I’ll beam a message to my contacts and we can sell this creature for some good credits.”

“No!”

But the female wasn’t listening.

Fear made water fill Nia’s eyes.

This wasn’t happening to her.

It had to be a bad dream.

As she stared at the closed door of the ship, she wished it would open and she would see Lauren or even Riv’s scowling face, but she knew the possibilities of that were low.

They had no idea where she was.

She was alone.

She’d have to figure out a way to get out of this on her own.

7

“Bring her to the holding cell,” the boss said before turning and heading farther into the ship.

Two of the aliens wearing cloaks grasped her arms and pulled her up and followed behind.

Nia shook herself, shaking like a toddler would while in a tantrum, but it was futile. Their grips were like vices and