Page 4 of Cherished By the Alien Outlaw

I struggled, bucking and shifting on the floor, trying to break through my bindings but like the ads said, they were indestructible.

I couldn’t get free.

“Maggie,” I shouted.

A prick on my arm, and the world swirled away . . .

“Wake,” a gentle, lilting voice said from somewhere nearby. “It’s time to meet your mate.”

Mate? What was this, a wolf shifter romance dream?

“No mate,” I slurred, unable to open my eyes.

A grinding sound rang out overhead, and I slitted my eyes just enough to catch a glass panel moving to the side. What was going on?

Vague memories crashed through me of the robocops lifting me and carrying me down the back stairwell of our building. Maggie lay across the shoulder of the robocop behind me. I wanted to ask them where they were taking us, but my mind kept sliding away . . .

I woke as the robocop carrying me leaped over a very high fence and landed squarely on the other side. It ran toward . . . Nah, it couldn’t be the spaceship headed for Mars I’d seen on TV. This was a dream, and an odd one, at that.

The robocop took me inside the ship and laid me in a long glass cylinder. As my brain whirled, I peered around, watching as they laid Maggie in another cylinder beside mine. Beyond her, I spied other women lying motionless inside pods.

“This is a mistake,” I slurred. “Not an astronaut.”

I knew nothing more.

My pod jolted, and I woke, gasping as mechanical arms reached inside to scoop me up. My arms and legs didn’t seem to want to work, and my head kept spinning as I was lifted from the cylinder and carried through a stark white room. The mechanical being took me out into a hall that was equally white. Other arms carried women I’d never seen before in a row behind me.

“Maggie,” I whimpered. “Maggie?” I made my body work, crooking my head around, seeking her.

There. Another mechanical being was carrying her. Where had our leotards, skirts, and ballet flats gone? We now wore white nighties that skimmed our mid-thighs, and I could tell this new “boutique” had forgotten to dress me in undies. Cool air rushed up my nightie, finding my privates, and I squirmed.

“Let me go. Stop,” I cried out, unable to find enough energy to scream. But I could barely move.

A door opened on my right, and the arms took me into a much smaller room with another clear pod. They gently laid me inside, and the top closed, blocking out all sound but my ragged breathing.

“No,” I whispered. “Stop.”

A panel by my feet opened on the outer wall, and my pod slid down a chute and launched into . . . space.

Stars unlike any I’d seen before sparkled around me, and a planet made up of varying shades of purple loomed ahead. My tiny space shuttle flew toward it, as did others holding the women I’d seen back on the ship.

This wasn’t a dream. It was our new reality. But why?

Our spaceships burst through the planet’s outer atmosphere and flew in the same direction toward a large lavender landmass. It was only when I could make out purple forests and broad stretches of open land that we split apart, most going toward a lake with a large island while a few of us were carried in other directions.

“Maggie,” I cried. “Maggie!”

I was finally waking up, and it was too late to help my twin sister. What would happen to her?

What would happen to me?

My spaceship swooped over forests and fields and finally reached a broad sandy area—a desert—and kept flying, carrying me for at least ten minutes or so before I felt the hum of the engines slow.

The ship dove down, plowing into the desert’s surface. Sand flew up and over the glass ship, and I cringed, figuring this was it. The ship would explode, and I’d die. I’d never see my sister again.

When the ship came to a stop, the lid slid open. Sand dumped in, and I coughed, waving my hand to move the dust clouding my lungs. Dry heat dumped inside along with the sand, and the sun soon seared my exposed arms and legs.

I struggled to sit up and peered around.

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