Mama and the Alien Warrior (Treasured By The Alien #1) - Honey Phillips Page 0,1

hurt…”

The room spun and the world went black.

“Mama. Mama, please wake up.” Lucie’s voice came from a long way away as she drifted in a cold, dark world.

“Mama, I’s scared.”

Lucie’s fearful voice finally penetrated, and she forced her way back to consciousness. Her eyes watered when she tried to open them, halfway blinded by a bright, white light. She squinted against the glare, searching for her daughter’s face. Lucie hovered over her and burst into tears when Abby opened her eyes.

“Ssh, baby. It’s going to be all right.” She pulled her daughter against her, Lucie’s small body reassuringly warm and solid in her arms. Humming to her daughter despite the throbbing ache in her head, she tried to rock Lucie but her body felt heavy and lethargic. As the fog from whatever she’d been given began to clear, she noticed a burning sensation on her right wrist. Forcing her eyes to focus, she saw a long string of symbols etched onto her arm.

“Me too, Mama.” Lucie’s lip trembled as she held out her wrist next to Abby’s. “It hurts.”

The sight of the obscene mark on her daughter’s delicate skin sent a flood of icy rage sweeping through her, clearing the last remnants of confusion from her head. Those bastards in the black suits were going to pay for this. Still holding Lucie close, she sat up and took in her surroundings.

They were in a sterile white room with glass walls on two sides and dull white metal walls on the other two. Four beds lined each side of the room and her girls, all of them still unconscious, occupied five of them. One wall overlooked a wide corridor, and the other side was lined with two sets of cabinets separated by a counter arrayed with an alarming variety of strange-looking instruments. Through the other glass wall, she could see a second white room, this one filled with clear plastic cribs. At least half of the cribs were occupied, and she thought she could identify the three babies belonging to her girls. There were two more human babies and one tiny green one who was obviously not human. The setup reminded her of a hospital—or a lab—and the strong antiseptic smell that permeated the air only reinforced that impression.

“Where are we, Mama?”

“I don’t know.” Her mind was still wrestling with the idea that the men who had come to the house had not been men after all. And if they weren’t men, where was she now? “Did you see anybody before I woke up?”

“Just those mean men.”

“Mean men?”

“The ones in black.” Her lip trembled again. “I don’t like them.”

“I don’t either, baby. Let’s check on the girls, okay?”

“Okay.” A tiny smile peeped out for the first time. “Elaina makes a lot of noise when she sleeps.”

“But we don’t have to tell her that,” Abby said gently.

Keeping Lucie’s hand firmly tucked in hers, she checked on the girls. All of them were still sleeping, although Cassie and TeShawna were starting to stir. Molly and Amber worried her the most. The other girls had recently had their babies, but these two were still pregnant. What effect would the sleeping potion in that syringe have on their unborn babies?

Returning to her cot, she lifted her daughter onto her lap. “Do you remember what happened, Lucie?”

Lucie hung her head. “I didn’t want to wait so’s I followed you. The mean man grabbed you and you fell down. Then he grabbed me.” She looked up, tears welling in her big brown eyes. “He had a needle. I don’t like needles. And I didn’t even get a sticker.”

“I don’t think they’re anywhere near as nice as Dr. Becky.” Lucie’s pediatrician always rewarded Lucie after she had her shots.

“They look funny. Who are they, Mama?”

“I don’t know, baby,” she said again, wishing she had some answers.

“What do they want?”

“I wish I knew.”

Chapter Two

A little while later, the girls began to wake up. Cassie took the news that they appeared to have been taken by aliens with grim acceptance. She had already been through so much in her short life that she had cultivated a cynical shell that was rarely breached, although Abby could see her hands shaking. The other girls dissolved into tears as Abby did her best to comfort them. Molly, her fragile little sixteen-year-old, cried silently, big tears rolling down her cheeks.

“Aliens, Miss Abby?” TeShawna finally asked, wiping angrily at her cheeks. “Really?” A street smart girl with a defiant attitude, she was one of the