Arik: Alien Adoption Agency #7 Read online

  Arik

  Alien Adoption Agency #7

  Tasha Black

  13th Story Press

  Copyright © 2021 by 13th Story Press

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

  may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

  without the express written permission of the publisher

  except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  13th Story Press

  PO Box 506

  Swarthmore, PA 19081

  [email protected]

  Cover designed by Sylvia Frost of The Book Brander

  Contents

  Tasha Black Starter Library

  About Arik

  Arik

  1. Lucy

  2. Lucy

  3. Arik

  4. Lucy

  5. Lucy

  6. Arik

  7. Arik

  8. Lucy

  9. Lucy

  10. Lucy

  11. Arik

  12. Lucy

  13. Lucy

  14. Lucy

  15. Arik

  16. Lucy

  17. Arik

  18. Arik

  19. Lucy

  20. Lucy

  21. Arik

  22. Lucy

  23. Arik

  24. Lucy

  25. Lucy

  26. Arik

  27. Lucy

  28. Arik

  29. Lucy

  30. Lucy

  Jett (SAMPLE)

  1. Madeline

  2. Jett

  3. Madeline

  4. Jett

  Tasha Black Starter Library

  About the Author

  One Percent Club

  Tasha Black Starter Library

  Packed with steamy shifters, mischievous magic, billionaire superheroes, and plenty of HEAT, the Tasha Black Starter Library is the perfect way to dive into Tasha's unique brand of Romance with Bite!

  Get your FREE books now at tashablack.com!

  About Arik

  Is his love hot enough to shelter her from the coming storm?

  Lucy is unable to believe her good fortune when she receives an invitation to adopt adorable baby Flora. And she can’t wait to move to a frontier moon to raise the little one on a farmstead of her own. But when she arrives on the desolate moon of Atropos, she realizes it will take every last ounce of her ingenuity and courage to get their new herd of tundra bison across the ice plains before they succumb to an earthquake, a blizzard, or a wild animal attack. Or worse… before she succumbs to the baby’s infuriatingly handsome guard.

  Arik knows instantly that the innocent-looking little Terran is his fated mate. But she plays it cool, pretending not to notice how irresistible he is, and instead focusing her surprisingly impressive survival skills on getting them all to the mountains unscathed. Her stubbornness would be enough to send the mighty Invicta dragon warrior over the edge, if he didn’t have bigger things to worry about, like how to protect baby Flora from the dangers of the treacherous moon.

  As more and more harrowing obstacles spring up in their path, Lucy and Arik begin to wonder if the frontier moon itself could be consciously fighting back against their efforts to tame her. The two might just have to drop their differences and join forces if they want to fight their way to safety, and prove they deserve a place in the harshly beautiful world of Atropos.

  If you like strong women, hunky aliens, wild adventures, steamy sensual scenes, and happily-ever-afters, then you’ll love the world of Stargazer!

  Alien Adoption Agency is a Stargazer Alien Series – read them all:

  Set on the moon of Clotho:

  -Noxx

  -Kade

  -Tyro

  Set on the moon of Lachesis:

  - Zane

  - Rexx

  - Odin

  Set on the moon of Atropos:

  - Arik

  - Jett

  - Zyon

  Arik

  1

  Lucy

  Lucy Solitude gazed out the window of the rickety craft into the clouds, and tried to subtly hike up the neckline of her low-cut purple gown.

  But the space craft was too tiny for her to do anything without the others noticing.

  “These dresses are an outrage,” her seat mate said sympathetically. “Why would the adoption agency want us to wear them? Would you like to borrow a scarf?”

  Lucy had a scarf of her own in her pack, but she didn’t want to make waves by covering her dress when the agency seemed to think it was so important for her to wear it. She wasn’t sure about the cultural significance of the revealing outfit, but the last thing she needed was to get off on the wrong foot by offending someone.

  “I’m okay,” Lucy said, shaking her head and smiling at Madeline.

  Madeline (not Maddie, never Maddie) smiled back at her modestly. Madeline did everything modestly, living her life according to the teachings of the saints whose icons she displayed on the cotton apron she wore over all her clothing.

  Except, that is, when Lucy, and their third companion, Kora, could get a couple of drinks into Madeline. That was when the quiet blonde removed her apron of good faith, and sang and cursed like a crewman, laughing a deep, throaty laugh that Lucy couldn’t help but want to hear again and again.

  Lucy hoped that without her two friends, Madeline would still find ways to let her hair down. Dedicating herself to the good faith was all fine and well, but a person had to enjoy life, too.

  But sadly, Lucy would never know what Madeline and Kora would do next. After the weeks of training at the adoption agency and growing close, the three would finally be parting ways today.

  The idea of it was painful.

  Kora must have been thinking the same. She sat opposite them, biting her lip and looking thoughtful, which was out of character. The dark-haired girl with a sprinkle of freckles across her cheeks almost always wore an impish smile.

  “The clouds,” Madeline said suddenly.

  Lucy turned back to the window to see that the clouds beneath them were dissipating, revealing the unusual landscape of the frontier moon below.

  They had learned about the moon of Atropos in their training program. Named for “the inflexible one” - the sister of the three fates who was said to cut the strings of life - Atropos was unyielding and dangerous. Which was saying a lot, since the other two moons in orbit around Hesiod-8 were no walk in the park.

  Seismic activity on Atropos was responsible for the volcanoes that had shaped its rocky surface. Extreme cold meant there were massive ice fields the size of the deserts back home. But the volcanic hot springs caused tropical oases too, that could be found along the rivers that met at a mountain range on Atropos’s northern pole.

  But none of that written knowledge could have prepared Lucy for the scene that unfolded below.

  Huge swathes of blinding white ice seemed to cover most of the surface. Two rivers were visible from this angle, each of them snaking in a looping, green-blue line toward the distant mountains. The tops of the green trees that punctuated the curves of the rivers at intervals looked soft and fluffy from up here, and almost garishly green and lush compared with the harsh white of the ice that surrounded them.

  To the west a massive and murky turquoise puddle had to be Boiling Lake. Fed by underground hot springs, the lake might not actually be boiling, but it was hot enough to earn its name.

  In the distance, large rocky columns reached out of the ice, like a hauntingly strange staircase leading to the dark mountain range beyond.

  “Igneous rock,” Lucy heard herself say, repeating the words she had heard in training to describe the strange rock formations left behind by a vo
lcano.

  “Holy crap,” Kora breathed. “This place has everything.”

  “You’re going to be right at home, aren’t you?” Madeline asked her with an indulgent smile.

  Kora was into extreme sports back home. She had been a hopeful to represent Terra-3 in the Intergalactic Games until an injury benched her at the last moment.

  On the lower Terras, medical costs were still an individual burden. Her family couldn’t afford the proper surgery, so Kora had rested for as long as she could afford to, and then looked for work, knowing her knee was ruined and she would never be able to compete again.

  But the opportunity to adopt a child and move to a frontier moon captured her wild imagination. Kora had told her friends that her new life would offer even more challenges and rewards than her old one.

  Still, Lucy was certain that Kora would be better able to face those challenges if she’d had the necessary surgery.

  “Ice, water, rock climbing,” Kora listed. “This is going to be extreme.”

  “But you’ll be careful,” Madeline said quietly.

  “Oh, yeah, sure,” Kora said carelessly, still gazing out the window with wide eyes. “I’ll probably wear a brace or something.”

  Madeline looked at Lucy and rolled her eyes.

  “She’ll be okay,” Lucy mouthed with a smile.

  Lucy’s own experience in the Home Guard back on Terra-9 told her that most people could overcome their challenges if they were determined and had a positive outlook. She had been in basic training with women of all shapes, sizes and abilities. The ones who found a way to graduate and go on to serve were not necessarily the ones who arrived in the best physical condition, but those who worked hard and didn’t let early failures get them down.

  And Lucy couldn’t imagine anyone more optimistic and determined than Kora. She was very sure her friend would fare well here, or anywhere.

  Even if here looked pretty darned intimidating.

  “Do you think there are bad storms here?” she wondered out loud.

  “Why didn’t we think to ask that in the training program?” Madeline asked.

  “Probably,” Kora said, her eyes still fixed on the topography below them. “All that cold and hot smashing up against each other has to wreak havoc with the weather.”

  Lucy suppressed a shudder and focused her eyes on the mountains in the background.

  You’ve got this, Lucy, she told herself. You’re going to be a mom. That’s the important thing.

  Her four-year contract with the Home Guard had ended just after the Zyntine floods. And instead of signing back on for another four years like she had always planned, Lucy had decided to seek her next adventure.

  She told herself it was because she longed for a family and something new. And she did. But other forces had pushed her away from the Guard too.

  “Prepare for landing.” The pilot’s voice said through the auto-translator, snapping her out of her thoughts before they could go to any dark places.

  Lucy exchanged excited glances with her friends. It was finally happening. This was it.

  As the accelerators switched off and the craft went momentarily into free-fall, she distracted herself from fears that the decelerators wouldn’t deploy by trying to imagine what her baby would look like.

  She was sure the little one would be shy at first. It would take time for them to bond, but they would have all the time in the world. Adopting the baby came with land and a stipend. So, there would be nothing to do but work the land and get to know her child. This moon was mostly uninhabited, so there would be few distractions.

  The decelerators kicked in with a mighty hiss, and she let out a breath of relief.

  Ironically, the unfriendly sound caused Madeline to grip onto Lucy’s hand so tightly that it hurt.

  “It’s fine,” Lucy murmured to her gently. “This is a totally normal landing for an inhospitable surface.”

  The helix pterons above came to life with a whirr and Lucy could hear stabilizers lowering to the ground, the pterons allowing them to hover in place until the stilts had adjusted properly.

  At last, the craft came to a stop. The whine of the engine cut as the pterons stopped their whirring.

  “Prepare to slide through the chemical bath,” the pilot’s voice crackled again over the speaker.

  Madeline looked pale, and Kora was stretching out her bad leg.

  “I’ll go first,” Lucy said, hopping up.

  “Is it normal to slide through a chemical bath?” Madeline asked hopefully.

  “Well, I’ve never done it before,” Lucy admitted. “But how bad could it be? I’m sure they just don’t want us tracking anything foreign into the moon’s environment.”

  “Besides ourselves,” Kora quipped with a wink and a grin.

  Lucy winked back and headed to the exit door.

  Sure enough, a metal tunnel slide had been extended down to ground level. A curtain covered the exit from the slide, so she could only imagine what was waiting down there.

  “No time like the present,” she said to herself.

  “Slide through the chemical bath,” the pilot’s voice repeated, impatiently.

  She didn’t see any chemical bath, but there must be something there. Maybe it was gaseous.

  Lucy sat on the edge of the slide and gave herself a push.

  The metal was so cold that it was almost painful through her thin dress. As soon as she began to move, a misting system clouded the air around her with harsh chemicals.

  She closed her eyes, but it was too late, the tiny droplets had already taken up residence, causing hot tears to well up in response.

  The speedy trip down the slide had her hair and dress flipping up, and with her eyes closed, she didn’t know she had hit bottom until she slid through the curtain and into the frigid embrace of the desolate, icy moon.

  Welcome to Atropos, she thought.

  Welcome home.

  2

  Lucy

  Lucy landed on her feet somehow, and stood, buffeted by bitter wind in her low-cut, chemical-damp gown.

  A hover droid moved to her quickly, holding something out.

  “Your coverings,” it said politely.

  She held out her arms in relief, not caring that the thing was wrapping her up in the equivalent of a shapeless fur-lined bathrobe with a hood. The warmth was incredibly comforting.

  The droid lowered its arms and pulled something from its chest cavity.

  “Fur lined boots,” it told her, immediately wrenching the pretty slippers from her feet and replacing them with enormous leather boots.

  The boots clearly had solar-fed air cells in the soles. Her feet felt like they were floating on warm clouds.

  “Claim your child,” it told her helpfully, indicating a rocky path.

  Well, at least she wasn’t wearing those stupid dainty slippers anymore.

  She turned back to see Madeline whoosh down the slide, her apron flapping up to her face.

  “Claim your child,” the droid repeated.

  Lucy turned back to the path ahead, putting one foot in front of the other and willing herself to stay calm. Yes, it was cold, it was very, very cold, but this was what she had studied and prepared for.

  After a few minutes of climbing, she found herself on an open patch of tundra. The wind whipped around her hungrily.

  A droid, a couple of people, and a herd of large animals were in her view, but her eyes went straight to a man who was holding a baby.

  The baby was wearing the infant equivalent of Lucy’s furry robe. A single curl of soft red hair peeked out of the hood.

  Though this was all she had seen of the child, a pang of love went through Lucy’s heart instantly.

  She strode toward the little bundle as quickly as she could, but time seemed to have slowed to a dreamlike pace.

  Despite the cold, the arms of the man holding the child were bare and exposed, revealing muscular forearms, covered in scales the color of fire. The sight made Lucy ta
ke her eyes off the baby long enough to get a real look at him.

  His whole body had that same fiery glow. And his entire torso was bare, except for the armor that signified he was a warrior. His breeches hung low on his hips, showing off more of his muscled form.

  He wouldn’t survive this environment long without proper coverings. Unless…

  Her eyes went back to the scales on his forearms.

  Impossible.

  But there was no other explanation. In spite of all the reasons an Invicta dragon warrior would not be on Atropos, here he was, one of the most elite warriors alive.

  And he was holding her baby.

  “Hello,” she said, reaching the man just as she put two and two together. “I’m Lucy. Is this my little one?”

  “Yes,” the warrior replied, with a wickedly handsome half-smile. “It is a female whelp, healthy and strong.”

  “Oh,” Lucy said, wondering why he was referring to her adorable baby as a whelp. “May I hold her?”

  A strange expression hardened his features for a moment, then disappeared. He held out the babe, looking as unconcerned and roguishly handsome as before.

  Lucy took her with trembling arms.

  “Hello, little one,” she whispered, not wanting to frighten her.