Sienna, page 1
Sienna
Mel Teshco
Sienna
Copyright © Mel Teshco 2023
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Cover art by Emcat Designs
https://www.facebook.com/EmCatDesigns
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Epilogue
Chapter One of Jasper
Chapter One
Sienna stared out the train’s window, her green-eyed, dark-haired reflection staring back at her between the brief flashes of river glinting outside under a full moon. Not that she took much notice. Her morose thoughts were too busy pondering how much longer she’d be forced to live inside one of these ten train carriages that click-clacked in a ceaseless roundtrip through New Faxian.
She grimaced. She shouldn’t complain. She had an ever-moving shelter that kept her alien enemies, the Dronians, from getting a fix on her position. That the train followed the freshwater river of Dahrt, which flowed through the city of New Faxian in a nourishing rush, was just a bonus.
She swallowed, her throat suddenly parched. She’d dunk herself in the river soon enough, and shift into her primary, aquatic shape. Her body ached with the need to do just that. Underwater was the one safe place she could become her real self without the Dronians tracking her down. Earth’s H20 didn’t just sustain her—any of her kind—it shielded her alien identity from the Dronian fuckers.
She sighed heavily. She needed water like humans needed oxygen. Not that she’d die without it, but her rare powers would dry out like husks under the sun and her whole body would operate at base level. She’d be living and breathing, but she’d be a shell of her former self and as weak as any human here on Earth.
She couldn’t afford any fragility. Not only did she have the Dronians hunting her down, just a few days ago she’d become aware of a different species of alien following her. A Gorema native. She didn’t know a lot about them other than the fact they had gold and tan striated skin, pointed ears and gold eyes, and they were an alien race renowned for their merciless bounty hunters.
She shivered, instinctively knowing the male who’d followed her was one of their infamous hunters. One glimpse had revealed the predatory nature of the man, the fluid movement of his coiled muscles hidden beneath his long pants and long-sleeved jacket. Even the way he blended in with the crowd, despite his striped skin and his size, showcased his mercenary skill.
Though why the hell a bounty hunter wanted her, likely the last female of her kind, was beyond her. Not that she intended to ever find out.
She’d escaped her planet, Strazan, by flying in a preprogrammed craft to Earth with six other Strazanian rares in a bid for freedom and an attempt to stay alive. Her eyes narrowed. The rest of her kind hadn’t sacrificed their lives for nothing. She and her six comrades had to stay alive at all cost. That they were all rares with powers meant they had a better chance than most to keep their hearts beating.
For the moment, the train—and the river—were her safest option. But to live in any one of the carriages she had to constantly alter the perception of the passengers who saw what she wanted them to see: an old couple taking up the double seats where Sienna, for the most part, lived and slept. In the passengers mind a gray-haired, frail woman had her head back on the seat and slumbered, while the old man opposite read a paper, his vein-riddled hands flicking the pages every so often for good effect.
The less her imaginary people moved, made eye contact, spoke or generally had to act real, the better. Though her mind altering ability was as natural to her now as breathing thanks to her long-practice, it required a lot of energy. Some days she felt as weary as the old couple appeared to be to every human who saw them.
But if the passengers saw the old couple instead of Sienna, she stayed safe. Even the bounty hunter would be kept busy chasing his own tail—if he had one. It wasn’t as if she could fully research his species to find out. Most humans didn’t even believe in the existence of aliens, let alone have extensive information about them.
The train rattled and slowed and she exhaled softly, her patience running as dry as her human skin. She couldn’t wait to disembark and enjoy her midnight swim. Her every cell, every molecule craved the water! She was literally itching to slide into its wet embrace and shift back into her primary form.
At this late hour there were only three other people in the carriage. Two were a young couple in ripped jeans and matching black T-shirts who constantly whispered and intermittently kissed. The other was a weary looking, middle-aged businessman in a suit, a leather briefcase in hand. All three of them stood and began making their way down the aisle toward the exit doors, preparing to disembark.
Sienna stood too, sighing with relief as she relaxed her mind and the imaginary aged couple disappeared. She walked between the seats, trailing behind the trio of humans walking toward the end of the carriage.
The train finally stopped at the empty station platform. Very few passengers, if any, caught the train at this hour of night—early morning, now—but it would continue on again very soon and complete its endless commute from one end of the city and its surrounding suburbs, to the other.
A movement outside in her peripheral vision made her pause, the hairs on the back of her neck standing up even before she noticed the man in a hoodie and camo pants walking fast and efficiently along the platform and past her carriage. His gold eyes locked onto hers through the widow and she inhaled sharply.
The Gorema.
Her muscles unlocked. Too late. The bounty hunter was already running to the open carriage doors, where the three other passengers disembarked. She would soon be all alone with him on a carriage with nowhere to go.
The doors slid closed and the train lurched forward as it started its journey again. It took her a split second to duck behind a seat and simultaneously push an image into the bounty hunter’s mind of her standing in the aisle as he pushed open the door.
He stilled, facing her duplicate. “Sienna,” he said in an accented, faintly amused voice. And yet, there was no mistaking the dark intent in his voice. “I finally have you.”
That’s what you think, asshole.
He stalked toward her mirage. Even from her hiding place, his big body seemed to suck away all the space, making it hard for her to breathe...to focus. It took everything she had for him to believe her duplicate was shuffling back to the other end of the carriage.
Sienna shook her head. She should have swum in the river already and regained her strength. That she’d been eating and sleeping very little was also on her. She deserved to be caught.
No, you don’t. You dishonor your fallen people to even think that way.
She closed her eyes, wishing she had her comrade Nero’s level of ability to plant a suggestion. Except she had a strong feeling this bounty hunter wouldn’t be easily influenced, and she couldn’t simply suggest that he step out of the carriage and onto the next platform to leave her alone.
Illusions were by far her greatest strength.
Though she was a rare, whose ability to plant suggestions was considered to generally be strong, she was one of the weakest in that regard. Her ability was even more diluted here on Earth, with only her skill at illusions growing stronger each day.
Of course, she had one other rare trick up her sleeve, but she’d used that failsafe already, wiping out a heap of Dronians a few days ago by blowing them up from the inside out. It was mostly why she was so wretchedly weak now.
The stranger clucked his tongue. “If there was any other way of dealing with the Dronians, believe me, I’d happily leave you the hell alone.” At her duplicate’s continued silence, he added, “But there isn’t, which means you’re going to have to come with me.”
So that was why he wanted her. Did he truly believe she had any idea how to deal with her enemy? The same enemy who’d annihilated her people. If there had been a way to destroy the Dronians, she and her people would have wiped them out long before their enemy had had a chance to exterminate them first.
He stalked forward, then grunted as he ineffectually grabbed at thin air. “What the hell?”
There was no time now to second-guess. She pushed out from her hiding spot behind one of the seats and took off running.
He cursed savagely, but she didn’t have time to look behind her. Not with his footsteps already thumping after her, gaining on her.
She had a second to slam open the carriage door, step over the coupler that linked the two carriages together, then shove open the next carriag
The carriage and its empty seats became hazy as she made herself invisible before she dropped under a row of seats as the carriage door behind her flew open with a bang. She held her breath, her heart hammering in her ears. The bounty hunter’s big tan boots were so close she could reach out and touch them.
But she couldn’t move. She dared not make a sound. His pointed ears, which he hid behind his dark-brown hair and his hoodie, were exceptionally sensitive. That no one seemed to have noticed his large, yellow eyes, which gave him excellent vision even at nighttime, was anyone’s guess. Perhaps he never looked at anyone, never gave them a chance to question his inhuman stare.
She looked up ever so carefully. He crossed his arms and scanned the carriage. “I believe disappearing is one of the tricks you rares employ.” He chuckled, clearly enjoying the hunt. “Just so you know, I’ll be checking under and on top of every single seat. It will be just a matter of time, Sienna, and you’ll be mine.”
Fuck. All she needed was for the space cowboy to actually find her. She hadn’t evaded the Dronians all this time just to have this alien capture her instead.
He pulled out a small handgrip from his pants pocket, flicking it with a quick snap of his wrist so that the steel-gray handgrip grew into a club. With a grim smile, he turned to the seats, where she was hidden beneath, and knocked on the cushioned top of each one.
She glared. But she still had the element of surprise on her side. In one fluid move, she rolled to the side, pushed to her feet and released the bubble from around her, appearing out of thin air in front of him. Kicking away his club, she grabbed his arms and swung him around, sending him crashing to the seat on his back.
She drew the rapier out of her holster and leaned over him, pressing the blade to his throat, her knee on his groin. She sucked in a breath. His cock was thick, long and hard, and throbbed beneath his pants. The damn alien was turned on! That a part of her was just as stimulated told her how much she needed a one-night-stand...and soon.
She held his amused yellow stare. “Who are you? What do you want from me?”
“My name is Gray Bastine. My friends call me Bastine.”
“Gray, it is then,” she said harshly. She pushed the rapier harder against his flesh and the blade dug deeper into his striated gold and brown throat, a trickle of blood sliding free. “What do you want?” she repeated harshly.
He waggled a dark-gold eyebrow, then glanced suggestively down at his groin. “I believe it’s rather obvious what I want.”
Her breath hissed out. “Except you’re not paid to have sex with your captor, are you? I believe it is actually considered quite an offense to do so.”
His stare glinted, the hood of his navy-blue sweater falling back to reveal his dark, shoulder-length hair with its striations of gold. Little wonder he kept it covered, it was as unusual as his skin. “So you know a little about my kind, then?”
She enjoyed pricking his throat even harder, then watching a fresh stream of blood well and release down his smooth, striated throat. “I know enough that I will kill you before allowing you to capture me. I know that I didn’t escape from my own planet to have my freedom taken away from me on this one.”
He smirked, seemingly unconcerned he was beneath her and bleeding rather profusely now from the sharp end of her rapier. That his cock bulged even harder beneath her knee made her decidedly uncomfortable, and it took everything she had not to shift her knee aside and drop onto him completely so that she could squirm intimately against him and gain some relief.
Damn it, she really did need to find a worthwhile bed partner for a night or two. Seeing Nero enjoying his human woman had only underscored her loneliness and an unfulfilled urge to mate that had left her running on empty in more ways than one.
It would be easy enough to drag down Gray’s pants and ride yourself into orgasm. It’s not like he wouldn’t enjoy it.
Heat rushed between her thighs and Gray’s nostrils flared, his full lips parting into a knowing smile. “I could ease your needs right now, if you’d let me.”
“And how do you plan on doing that?” she asked, a masochistic side of her needing to know every single intimate detail.
“My hands are free,” he said, lifting them in front of her. “It would take me less than a minute to rub your sensitive clit and make you come. Or you could ride my face while I use my tongue—“
“Shut up,” she gritted out, her whole body flooding with urgent need. Bad enough she’d let herself grow weak from lack of water, sleep and food. That she was ignoring her body’s most basic instinct for sex was pushing her toward desperation.
“As you wish,” he said huskily, dropping his hands.
She wasn’t even remotely prepared then for his strong, lithe body to surge up before he deftly rolled her beneath him, the rapier clattering beneath the seats. All she knew was that she was breathing heavily as his big, male body leaned over her, his cock pushing insistently against her.
He looked down at her, his eyes glittering triumphantly. “What was I saying?”
She stiffened, but not because he’d gained the upper hand. All her senses were shifting into high alert. He braced against her, as though protecting her from unseen danger, his nostrils flaring and his jaw going hard, and she knew he was just as aware of the incoming danger.
“The Dronians are here,” she whispered starkly.
Chapter Two
Gray Bastine had never been one to let fear rule his head, but knowing the vicious aliens were nearby, and had likely followed him to Sienna, made his blood run cold. “Can you see the Dronians once they’re in range?” he asked hoarsely.
He needed to get a bearing on just how deep in the shit they both were.
Her eyes flashed. “No, of course not.” Her gaze narrowed. “Can you?”
He nodded. “All of my kind can see through their camouflage.”
She scowled even as he pushed off her, the train slowing for the station, where the Dronians would no doubt be waiting to board. He looked down at her, his pulse surging. “We need to get off this train before it gets to the next platform.”
She nodded, for once in complete agreement with him. “We do.”
“Any ideas?” he asked. From what he’d learned just recently about her she’d been living on this train. She’d know it inside out and back to front.
“Just one.” She stood, and in half-a-dozen strides, she went to the end of the carriage and lifted the cover of an access panel. An alarm immediately sounded, and she braced her legs wide apart before slamming her hand against a red button.
The train screeched in protest at the emergency stop, braking sharply and throwing him into the back of the nearest seat.
Oomph.
He shook his head to clear it, the blood from his neck wound flicking free and spraying the seat. And though it’d take some time for the locomotive to pull up all its carriages, it took Gray less than a handful of seconds to gain his feet again, then pivot to lock eyes on Sienna.
Except, she was already gone.
His lips curled. “Well played, Sienna, well played.”
Too bad she was weaponless. Her rapier lay beneath the seat opposite. He lunged to retrieve it along with his club before he sprinted toward the end of the still-moving carriage, then jumped through its opened doors and onto the shoulder of the stony ballast and sleepers.
Stones avalanched beneath his boots, but any noise he made was covered by the still-squealing brakes that pushed back the weight of the carriages. Despite his sensitive ears, in that moment he cared less about the noise.
His sense of smell was almost as responsive and his nostrils flared at the incoming, revolting odor of the Dronians. But if they stank to high heaven while alive, apparently the oily, rotten egg stink when they died was even more disgusting.
He only wished he’d been able to glean more information about them than the few alien journals he’d been able to get his hands on. Even the little knowledge he’d acquired had been quite the tedious process thanks to having to use a translator device to read the weird, alien script.
Not that it mattered. He was certain Sienna could shed far more light about their common enemy. It was in her best interest to do so. Knowledge was power, and armed with that knowledge, he and his people had a far greater chance of eliminating the Dronians.
