CHAPTER ONE

 

It’s three in the afternoon. I’ve been awake all night and day, waiting for a reprieve from the visitors so I can work alone, but I’m not tired. I not-so-patiently waited for the last of them to leave the Landis Observatory before I set about my tasks.

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I fist my hand and shake out the tension in my palm as I focus the 16-inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope and aim it at the sun. No one can know what I’m researching. Least of all David.

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He’s stolen enough from me, including the accolades from academia after he handed them the last three years of my work and palmed it off as his. Not what you expect a fiancé to do. I certainly didn’t. I can still barely believe he did, and it’s been six months.

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Six months where he’s been patted on the back for his groundbreaking discovery. I don’t want to consider. I don’t understand why he would have done that to me. How he could have done that to me. I certainly hadn’t expected him to steal the work that would have cemented my career. That same work I would have used to better humanity. Better the entire world, in fact.

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It was his interview with Josh Rogan that kicked me from brokenhearted to royally pissed. I watched him on YouTube, where he recited my discoveries, and I wanted to smack the smile off his smarmy face.

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The kicker is, he only understands my research to an extent. It isn’t entirely finished. He’s stolen it prematurely. I’ve added vital information to my findings about wormholes. The recent solar flares in the past month have been the perfect examples to substantiate my hypothesis. I will steal back my future and show the world the fraudster he is.

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I clench my eyes and take a deep breath to calm my racing heart, remembering the nights I shared my body with him. The way he’d fall asleep and leave me wanting. He was premature about many things.

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I turn my attention to the telescope, settle into the chair, and put my eye to the glass. The galaxy always has the power to make me breathless, and today doesn’t disappoint. On clear nights, these planets, nebulae, star clusters, and other celestial objects can be viewed through the telescope. I’ll need the day to see what I’m looking for, when it’s clear enough to view the sun in its unholy glory.

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I’m always a little afraid of its power. After all, the energy it puts off is enough to be seen by an entire galaxy light-years away. I always wonder if another being looking through their telescope might sight the sun’s twinkling light and wonder if there is other life on a planet far away from theirs. We might be looking at the same light from different perspectives this very moment.

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Bursts of high-energy particles and electromagnetic waves flare and blister off the sun’s surface. I discovered that the waves could temporarily warp and thin sections of space-time near Earth. The solar flares emitted from precisely the right configuration of active regions on the sun can be used to localize distortions to Earth’s gravity. This can theoretically predict a precisely aligned multi-directional flare event that could open up a microscopic wormhole near Earth for a fraction of a second. It doesn’t sound like much, but a microscopic wormhole compared to the sun is big enough to transport an entire town through space to another world in our solar system, or beyond.

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Of course, the odds of a natural flare alignment occurring are extremely low. It doesn’t worry David’s sycophants, who hang off every word he says, which are actually the words I scribed and he learned by rote. He doesn’t understand how space-time is curved by mass and energy. He can’t map the sun’s mass distribution or precisely calculate a trajectory of light as it escapes the sun’s gravity.

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But I can.

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And now I’ve nearly completed the part of my research that David doesn’t have. I’ve tracked the path of spacecraft in solar orbit for the past six months. In particular, I’ve studied the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory—or SOHO, as it’s called—and its corona imaging.

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I click the computer by my side, tracking the SOHO’s coronagraphics in real time. I watch the traces of solar wind that regulate solar-magnetic activity on the sun and are powerful enough to harness a wormhole to enable space travel over long distances.

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I found the proverbial needle in the haystack.

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I lock the telescope to the point of the sun I’ve researched and watch as the area brims with bright orange electricity. On time and on target. My heart beats faster and I hit record and watch the bolt of electricity flash to life and expand. It rises on top of a gigantic solar wave and shimmers toward Earth.

My whole body freezes.

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That’s the first time I’ve seen it do that.

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It’s the first time I’ve seen anything like it.

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The orange electricity expands into a tunnel and arrows directly toward me. I stand from the telescope and stagger back. Too late! I’m engulfed in an orange glow. The observatory disappears around me, or rather, I disappear from it.

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I disappear from everything.

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Every part of me disassembles. I’m broken apart until I’m nothing but scattered cells. I expand to the edges of the universe and snap back together again. But I’m not assembled in the same way. Something is different.

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I’m me. But not.

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The realization dies a million deaths in that millisecond because I’m twisting and turning through space at a speed so fast that stars are streaks of light.

I’m . . . in a wormhole. I . . . was right.

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I’m not jubilant and joyful. I’m so scared that if I were corporeal enough, I’d wet my pants without a problem. I don’t think I have a bladder. Or lungs. Or a voice. I’m screaming inside my head and it’s a terrified, horrified sound.

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A planet races toward me. Not Earth. This planet has scattered land masses strewn across its orb. One is black. Wisps of smoke spiral into the atmosphere. Another is frozen and white and glistens in the sun. I race toward a vibrant green landscape which becomes mountains and valleys, and flat plains filled with verdant foliage. A web of rivers snakes through the thick carpet, glistening a clear blue. The thunder of a waterfall pounds beyond the mist that drifts upward into a lilac sky.

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I fly to the tops of the trees, and then I fall abruptly. I tumble over and over, smacking into leaves, twigs. My arm scrapes a branch, but I don’t register the pain. Something hard scrapes my calf, tearing my jeans. I slam into the ground and the breath thumps from my lungs.

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I don’t feel anything. I’m dead and floating, not in my body, until my lungs clench and pull and I’m gasping thick lungfuls of air, coughing and spluttering and unable to get enough oxygen. I must, though, because sensation flows through my aching limbs. I blink through blurred vision to see everything shaking around me. Or maybe I’m trembling so much it appears the whole world is moving with me.

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I’m lying on wet leaves on a damp ground. The earth is spongy and probably saved me from broken bones. Stringent damp singes my nostrils, as though the debris I’m lying on has never been unsettled.

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My vision stabilizes enough to register giant leaves fluttering in a gentle breeze. Red and pink flowers dot vines climbing around enormous tree trunks. But I don’t recognize the trees. I can’t identify the flowers. They’re strange and completely foreign. Sweet, florally reminiscent of hibiscus rises around me. It’s pure, with an unidentified note of something else. Something more.

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I cough, rising to my elbows. Nausea clenches my stomach, but it’s forgotten when a silver disc flies over the canopy. The sun glints off its bright shell. It swivels back and forth, too erratic to obey any law of physics.

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Either my chest locks or I forget to breathe again. It doesn’t matter because I’m looking at a UFO.

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A . . . UFO.

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I should move, run and hide, but I don’t. My brain isn’t working. It’s short-circuiting. Too much has happened in too short a span, and all I can do is stare until the disc hovers right over me and crashes straight down through the foliage. Branches crack and leaves scatter. I’m covered with flying debris, telling me that this UFO is not my imagination. It stops before it hits the ground, then hovers silently.

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A door opens and two figures clomp out. I blink at them, trying to understand how lizards can walk upright and dress in white lab coats, when their bright yellow eyes land on me. My fight-or-flight instincts engage. I flop onto my belly. I can’t stand upright. I have no power in my limbs, so I crawl through the leaf debris. I don’t have a direction in mind. Anywhere is all right with me as long as it’s away from the lizards.

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It doesn’t matter how far I flounder though, because a boot stomps on my back and I’m shoved to the ground. I try to scream but wet leaves clog my mouth. Rough hands jerk my head sideways to bare my neck. My hair is pulled back and a cool metal cylinder is placed behind my ear. A dull click precedes an arc of brilliant white light scorching the inside of my skull.

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“Can she understand me now?”

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A rough voice filters through the white noise in my head. I blink open my eyes to find claws sinking into my shoulders, holding me upright. One of the lizards shakes me and shoves his face in front of mine. “Are you coherent yet? I understand you humans are slow, but this one seems to be extra stupid. You’ve made a mistake, Da’Egi.”

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“I didn’t make a mistake, Nu’Vad. She’s exactly like the others. Can’t you smell her stink?” the second lizard says.

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“The . . . others?” I’m past the point of being scared. Past the point of asking how I can understand talking lizards.

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“See?” My head rattles when Nu’Vad shakes me, and I think I’m going to be sick all over his pristine white coat.

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“I can’t see how those dirty alphas can come anywhere near these stinking omegas. They’re disgusting.” I try to cringe away when Da’Egi flashes a fang in my face.

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A distant roar sounds through the jungle, and the two lizards tense. “She’s good enough to test. Get her to the tree. Let’s see how long it takes for those degenerates to tear her apart.”

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My mind stutters into white-hot terror and brings up one word. “No!”

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“It doesn’t matter what you want, female. You’re nothing.” Nu’Vad flashes a row of serrated white teeth.

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Distant branches snap deep within the jungle. A flock of birds takes flight, screeching overhead, and my insides squeeze with permafrost.

“Stop riling up the bait. She’s ripe and they’ll be coming fast,” Da’Egi says.

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“Bait? For . . . who?” I can barely speak, my mouth is so dry, but they understand me.

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I’m flashed with another glimpse of sharp teeth and a hard glint. They’re enjoying what they’re doing to me. “You’ll see.”

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I struggle when they take me to a tree, but it’s no use. I’m too weak and they have the power of not being in total shock. Da’Egi grabs my shoulders while Nu’Vad lashes first one wrist and then the other to solid branches.

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The crashing comes closer, and the lizards swap a nervous look between them. Nu’Vad tests my bindings before they stomp back to the craft.

“Wait. Stop,” I croak. I don’t understand why I’m appealing to them for help, since they’re the ones who put me in this position. I struggle and end up chafing my wrists when a wicked cramp through my abdomen folds me in half.

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They don’t spare me a backward glance. The door closes and the craft shoots silently into the sky. It hovers before it disappears, one moment there, the next simply gone.

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My breathing grows choppy and my pelvis throbs with another violent cramp. Wetness gushes between my thighs and a sweet hibiscus perfume inexplicably floats around me. I don’t know where the scent is coming from. There are no hibiscuses around me. Then I don’t think of any flowers at all when the trees begin to shake as though something big powers through them.

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To get to me.

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I shake from my toes to the top of my head, and sweat from every pore of my body. My eyes dry out because I don’t want to blink. Not even when a heavy bead of sweat drips from my forehead into my eye.

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I begin to sob.

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Movement snags my vision. I do blink this time; I have to double check I’m seeing the green figure that melts from the foliage. A massive figure with bulging muscles, thick thighs, and a tail that slashes the air behind him.

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There’s no mistaking that the figure is a “him.” Not with the raging erection tenting the front of his loincloth. A scent overcomes me. Heady with musk. Masculine and repulsive.

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His nostrils flare and he draws the air deep into his lungs. He tips his head back and pins me with a delirious stare. More figures emerge between the leaves before I’m surrounded by massive, green-skinned males, all staring at me. All sporting massive erections.

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“Omega.” The male staring at me speaks and takes a lunging step toward me. His voice is rough gravel and makes ants crawl up my spine.

He’s wrong.

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All wrong.

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This whole situation is wrong. I don’t want them anywhere near me, but they clearly think differently. There’s only one thing on their minds, and I’m tied helpless to a tree. Every cell in my body wants to run, to hide, to get away from him, and I can’t do anything but scream.

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