Desired By The Sacred Alien (Sci-Fi Alien Romance) by Meg Ripley Page A

like…” Jax stretched one of his golden arms toward the dead Bezoar.
    “And the ones they kill?” she asked as anxiety gripped her heart again. “Are they just…waking up? Why won’t the ships recognize them?”
    Jax hesitated. “The ships recognize them, but they really are corrupted. Because of the capacity for natural activation, there’s also the capacity for the board to be activated…inefficiently.”
    An icy sheet of dread settled over Ada, and she whimpered involuntarily. Jax squeezed her hand again, and calm rolled through her muscles and slowly melted her fear. “So they are suffering,” she said through gritted teeth, “but it’s the humans’ fault?” Jax didn’t answer, but because she’d already tasted all of his knowledge, she could see the yes clearly in her mind.
    Ada locked eyes with Jax as they both sat up on the soft floor of the cave. “What will they do now that I’m…like this? Will they kill me?” Her heartbeat sped up. “Will you report me?”
    “They likely already know,” Jax said, and Ada saw in her mind that it was true. It was unsettling having access to someone else’s information---it was like having a giant library in her head. It would take some getting used to.
    “But they’ll want to use you as a poster child, most likely, and claim they didn’t know it was possible to the public. They’ll try hard to do anything that would upset the population, and once the population finds out you’re more identical than they thought---” Jax shrugged, and Ada answered for him.
    “They’ll want the engineers to answer for it. Maybe not now, but eventually.” She didn’t know if wars were started over things like this on Earth, but she didn’t want to find out. “Come on, we have to get back to the hub.” She sprinted to the mouth of the cave, and Jax followed.
    Jax stopped her with a hand on her shoulder, surprise clear in all three of his eyes. “Why me? I mean, I would like to tag along,” he said bashfully. “But why do I have to accompany you?”
    “You can back me up,” Ada said urgently as she dropped to her hands and knees and pushed through the hole. “Also…I kind of don’t want to be without you. Is that weird?”
    “Not at all,” Jax said behind the sheet of aluminum.

There were no weighted boots to hold her down, so she hesitated as she stood outside the cave. Her alloy frame was far heavier than a human’s, but this planet’s gravity was also very different. Jax frowned at her when he slipped through.
    “What’s wrong?”
    Ada pointed to her ship. “I need to get over there quickly, but…” she pointed at her naked body. Jax laughed in understanding and grabbed her hand.
    “Why didn’t you just say so?”
    Ada turned to ask what he meant, but a wave of nausea knocked her focus askew. She doubled over, gasping from the strength of it; it took her a few seconds to catch her breath. She stood up---and nearly fell over again when she saw she was standing right beneath her ship. Jax was grinning at her foolishly. It suited his handsome face, somehow. She felt warmth squeeze her heart, and she let herself enjoy it this time. What is it? She shook her head roughly.
    “I forgot you guys could teleport, but I didn’t realize you could bring passengers,” Ada admitted. She looked up. “Just a second.” She looked around in the dirt, and sure enough, she found the bubble she’d dropped earlier. She pressed it and waited for it to spring around her.
    When it did, she dropped into a squat and jumped as high as she could; Jax let out a low whistle, and she felt her whole body blush as she rose gracefully into the air, floating harmlessly above the force field. Her palm pressed the ship’s access panel, and for the first time in her life, she forgot to feel fear as she waited for it to open---and for the first time ever, it stayed closed. Ada had a moment to register what had happened before she went sailing back to the surface of Oro and into