Deep Penetration; Alien Breeders I by Stacey St. James

the forces were to go with the ships to try to protect
them, but if you volunteered to take part in the Earth defenses,
you could get a ticket. I stayed so I could send my daughter, Cara,
to safety. And because I couldn’t send anyone else and I wanted to
be part of the forces that stayed to try to protect
them.”
    A knot of emotion formed in her
throat, making it difficult to swallow. “I saved her,” she
murmured, trying to convince herself. “We held them long enough the
ships got away.”
    Tariq gave her a few moments to
compose herself. “Where did they go, Emerald?”
    Emerald’s heart skipped
several beats as awareness abruptly descended over her that the man
she was cuddled so trustingly against was an alien—just as those
who’d attacked them had been. Not the same alien race. Those who’d
attacked were horrible creatures that barely looked humanoid—but
still an enemy of humans! She didn’t give a damn whether they
called her child or not, called humans the children of the
Anunnaki! They considered the humans belonged to them! She hadn’t died to
protect her daughter just to tell them where to find
her!
    She pushed away from him abruptly and
sat up. She would’ve leapt to her feet and put more distance
between them if she hadn’t known it would only result in a useless
struggle. “I couldn’t tell you if I wanted to. I volunteered to
stay and that meant volunteering for a memory erase to keep the
enemy from finding out where they’d gone.”
    Tariq studied her speculatively. “And
you wouldn’t tell me if you could,” he said flatly.
    Emerald searched his face. “No, I
wouldn’t.”
    “ Don’t you want to know
that your daughter’s safe?”
    Emerald sent a sharp
glance toward Koryn. She hadn’t even realized he was there until
he’d asked the question. “Not badly enough to let your people
enslave her,” she retorted coldly. At any rate, she knew her daughter was
safe! There was more she still didn’t remember than she did, but
the one thing she was completely convinced of was that they’d
halted the invasion at Earth’s doorstep. They’d thrown everything
they had at them and destroyed most of the invading fleet, damaged
them so badly they’d focused on a ground war. The enemy might have
defeated them in the end. She didn’t know. She’d fallen here—at the
city—but she knew they hadn’t succeeded in wiping out mankind, even
though it was abundantly clear that was their intention.
    God only knew what they’d
done to provoke it, but she had a very bad feeling that they had provoked it. They’d
felt their own needs superseded all other considerations, that they
were the most
important species, when they’d set out to colonize and, to an
extent, she’d agreed with the general consensus.
    She still thought that they’d allowed
their arrogance to overcome good sense in their dealings with the
aliens that had attacked them, but she didn’t know that for
certain. They might have made an earnest attempt to negotiate. It
might well have been impossible. The aliens who’d attacked had
certainly proven they were vicious, vindictive bastards and maybe
they’d been that way from the start—impossible to deal with without
a fight to the death? To her, they’d seemed like monsters—scarier
than any nightmare. Maybe humans had looked that way to them and
all they’d been able to focus on was eradicating the nightmare
creatures so that they couldn’t be a threat to them?
    She could see she’d
angered both of Tariq and Koryn, but that was just too damned bad!
Maybe everything they’d told her was true and they would’ve still
been living in caves and chucking spears if not for the Anunnaki.
She didn’t know, and it didn’t matter. They weren’t children
anymore to be awed by the ‘god-like’ aliens! They certainly
didn’t owe the
Anunnaki anything for choosing them as guinea pigs!
    Tariq’s eyes narrowed but after a
moment he merely set her on her feet and got up.