Mystical Xmas: Paranormal Romance Anthology Box Set Read online

  When the morning light hits our faces, I stare at this incredible man lying next to me. The events from the night before runs through my mind; I wonder why I have not run yet. With all the fibers of my being I should be running and screaming, instead I am smiling and caressing. This man has no idea what he does to me.

  Domonique awakens and smiles at me staring at him.

  “Good morning gorgeous.”

  “Good morning handsome, hope you slept well?”

  “Oh I slept like a baby.”

  He draws me closer to him and I sink down into his arms surrendering myself completely to him. Suddenly Domonique pushes me away.

  “No, wait, we have to talk about what you saw last night.”

  “What the wolves?”

  “You know good and well what I am talking about Samantha. I knew you would have to know about my ancestry before we could marry, but I had hoped we could talk about it first, not have you witness it all first hand. I am sorry Samantha I swear to you I was planning to tell you.”

  “Hush, shush, no need to explain, you protected me. You love me, I have never loved anyone so much or ever been turned on more. What you are or where you came from is not important; I just care the person you are to me.”

  As we fall back onto the bed together, we make love once again. This time as one; this time we are more connected than ever; this time Domonique is my Alfa male and I am his Imprinted love.

  Moonlit Nights By Billie Jo Hanlin

  Copyright © 2014 Billie Jo Hanlin

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This book was printed in the United States of America.

  Chapter 1

  The Captain looked up in irritation from the report he was reading. There was a soft chime from the communication unit he wore on his uniform collar. “What?” he barked out, then winced when he heard the soft melodious voice on the other end.

  “I am sorry to bother you, Captain, but we have a situation I need to discuss with you.” The woman paused, then continued sarcastically, “When you can find the time to come by the medical bay, that is.”

  He gave another wince at the ice in her voice. Not that he didn’t deserve the cold shoulder. He had done everything in his power to avoid the brilliant doctor since she had transferred aboard his ship three months ago. Just not for the reasons she thought. He had been attracted to her since he had met her. A relationship was strictly forbidden between those in the same command structure and his best option had been to stay as far away from her as possible. Unfortunately that course of action had given her the impression that he not only didn’t like her but was unconcerned about his crew’s health. This was not the case at all. He liked her far too much for his peace of mind and had plenty of sleepless nights to prove it

  Senia cut off the com when Captain Jerrell said he was on his way. She took a deep breath to steady herself. She wasn’t sure what she had done to make the man dislike her so much. They had never met before she transferred aboard his ship. The ship she was serving on at the time was going in a different direction and with her time being almost up in the service she had wanted to go home before deciding whether or not to reenlist.

  The Moonwave had been the closest ship due to head home in a few months so she had transferred aboard to finish out her term. She had only exchanged a few words with the captain since then, but he had made his feelings clear by avoiding her whenever he could. When he couldn’t, he always had a frown on his face. However this...situation ...could no longer be avoided. It would be so much easier if she could stop herself from thinking about him all the time, she thought in irritation. He was everything she looked for in a man. Too bad he was such a jerk. She looked down at the file on her data unit. This was not going to make the captain happy at all.

  Jerrell walked into her office several minutes later with a predictable frown on his handsome face. He was always frowning at her. She knew he could smile, she had seen him do it towards others. She stood to face him with her desk as a barrier between them.

  “What do you need to talk to me about? You’re the doctor. Can’t you take care of it yourself?”

  Senia bristled at the autocratic demand. “I can take care of the medical aspects by myself just fine, but you need to be aware of what is going on with two members of your crew.”

  “Well, what is it?” Jerrell found himself unable to soften his voice. The sight of her was affecting him enough that it was taking all of his control to keep his body from reacting to her presence. Every damn time he saw her he had this problem. Then she started explaining the problem and every other thought left his head.

  “Specialist Shilly Lungreb is pregnant with a mutation. The baby will not be able to survive outside of being in saltwater. I think she will be able to breathe air for short periods but she will never walk the land. She has no legs. Instead she has a fully formed fish tail,” Senia told him bluntly.

  When their world had almost been destroyed, the scientist had done some down and dirty genetic manipulations to the population in order for them to survive. Most of the changes allowed them to live both on land and in the water as needed. They had injected the population with a compound that gave them gills to breathe under water and fins and webbing to get around easily. The genetic material used had come from the fish in the oceans. Occasionally, things turned out not quite right for some of the population and babies were born only able to live in the water, with others only able to live on land. The ones born more fish than humanoid were, more often than not, left to die. Over time those strains had been weeded out and only popped up in certain bloodlines. That was one of the reasons why some bloodlines were forbidden from mixing with other bloodlines.

  “Shilly is more than halfway through the pregnancy. There is nothing I can do except monitor her and the baby. She won’t name the father so I can’t do a genetic scan. I have an idea who he is but don’t want to say anything until I know for sure. I need your permission to match the baby’s genetics to the database so I can find out if I’m right and talk to him. I need to know if this mutation has shown up in his family before.”

  It took two senior officers to access the genetic database which was the only reason she hadn’t inform him of the problem in a memo.

  “If she doesn’t want to name the father, what right do we have to force her?” he asked.

  “Because this child is going to need special care until we can get home.”

  Senia was getting increasingly agitated and irritated with Jerrell. If she was right about who the father was, things were about to get worse. Without thinking, she ran her hands through her hair and walked around the desk to stand in front of Jerrell. Then she grabbed his arms to give him a small shake.

  “This is serious. If the father is who I think it is, both of them could lose not just their jobs but also be brought up on charges.”

  “Just who do you suspect is the father and why are you so worried about it?” Jerrell asked her. The heat from her hands burning through his uniform to brand his skin.

  “Because if I am right they are from two bloodlines that are forbidden from reproducing together,” Senia said softly. She didn’t agree with the edict but there were a lot of people who did, and it was the law on their world. They no longer left the unfortunate babies to die but there were worse things than dying.

  Jerrell barely heard the words coming from her lips, he was so focused on the long slender fingers griping his arm. When her words did penetrate, he stiffened, “That is a stupid law that needs to be repealed.”


  “Oh, I agree. It is a stupid law. At one time it might have made sense but with the advances we have now it is no longer necessary. The problem we have is our world is run by a group of old fashioned sticks-in-the-muds. The law is the law. Made by people who wouldn’t know what to do with a new idea if it came with instructions.”

  Jerrell stifled a laugh at her description of the elders who ran their planet. She wasn’t far off the mark. The elders seldom considered new ideas. There was a movement to change that and make them advisors once they passed a certain age since the race was so long lived, but though it was gaining momentum it hadn’t yet happened. That meant that when they got back to their world the parents of this baby were in for a very rough time and the life of the baby would be in jeopardy. They couldn’t immigrate just anywhere. They needed a place where they could live in a saltwater home. Plenty of planets had the oceans but not all of them were warm enough to live in nor would they have the ability to house them. And that was assuming they wanted to run off together.

  He looked into the eyes of the woman standing so earnestly in front of him. They were pleading with him for something. He slowly nodded his head and she gave a brisk nod of her head before turning to move away from him. Without thinking, he grabbed her arm to keep her close for just a moment longer.

  Senia raised her eyes to Jerrell when he stopped her. The heat in his dark eyes raced through her, setting her blood on fire as she realized for the first time that maybe he had another reason for avoiding her. Maybe it wasn’t that he didn’t like her, but that he liked her too much. Locked in an intense stare with Jerrell neither of them noticed the sirens blaring through the ship for a second. When the sound penetrated the haze around them they both jerked back.

  Jerrell activated the com unit. “What’s going on?” he asked the person on the other end.

  “Captain, something has caught us in a type of tractor beam. We can’t break loose of it.”

  “I’m on my way.” With a look of regret, he nodded at Senia and placed his hand on her console to authorize her to get into the DNA banks. She placed her hand next to his and the computer scanned their DNA together, allowing her access. When the program opened, Jerrell hurried out the door to see what the latest crisis was.

  Senia’s gaze followed him and stayed on the door long after it had closed behind him. She couldn’t believe what had just happened. Did she imagine the look in his eyes? Was it just wishful thinking on her part? She shook herself out of her thoughts and went to work identifying the father of Specialist Lungreb’s unborn baby.

  When Jerrell strode confidently into the control room, there was an almost audible sigh of relief from the men and women at their stations. The ship was large with a crew of over two hundred men and women and another sixty-seven scientists that were not, technically, part of the crew. Every one of them counted on Jerrell to lead them and get them home safely.

  There was nothing on the view screen to show him what had his ship in its grip. “Engines on full reverse now,” he said into the quiet that had fallen.

  “They already are, Captain. It makes no difference what I try, we can’t break loose,” the woman said from the helm. Her voice steady, showing no signs of apprehension or fear.

  Jerrell turned to the weapons officer, “Haylen, fire a burst of lasers ahead. Let’s see if we hit something.” When that had no effect, he said, “Fire in a continuous three hundred and sixty degree pattern.” Still no effect. They hit nothing and watched as the lasers disappeared into the distance. Whatever had them was not close enough to be hit by the weapons and showed no signs of letting them go.

  The space in front of them rippled and split apart, revealing a mass of colorful dancing ribbons of energy. The movement and colors were spellbinding and more than one member of the crew was mesmerized. Jerrell felt a faint buzzing in the back of his mind, like something was trying to communicate with him. He was not a telepath and not for the first time did he wish he had one aboard. Those ribbons of color were alive and he couldn’t talk to them, couldn’t ask what they wanted or even demand they let his ship go.

  He watched as they were pulled into the gaping rip in space, even as he gave the order for the crew to brace themselves. The transition was barely noticeable until they were completely inside. Once in the anomaly, the dancing ribbons flowed all around the ship without touching it. The ship gave a shudder, then another more violent shudder. Specialist Bowen at the helm called out.

  “The ship is under too much pressure, Captain. We are going to be torn apart if this continues for much longer.” Now there was a slight hint of panic in her voice.

  “Hold her steady, Bowen.” Then he asked, “What is the status of the shields?”

  “Shields down to sixty percent. They aren’t going to hold.” The weapons specialist was older and more seasoned. There was no hint of panic in his voice.

  A popping sounded from the communication station, followed by a crackle, before going dead. Their ability to communicate with anyone was gone until they got that fixed.

  One of the new young crew members monitoring the gravitronics station suddenly cried out wordlessly and clutched his head in agony. Over at another station a woman did the same, falling to the floor unconscious.

  Jerrell slapped his hand on the com and called to the doctor, “We need you in the control room right away, Doctor. I have two people who have fallen unconscious for no apparent reason.”

  “Captain, I can’t get there right now. Several other people have also fallen unconscious. I am going to have my hands full in just a minute. I’ll send a couple of my people up to bring them down to medical. I’ll let you know what I find when I can.”

  Jerrell wondered how many of his crew were affected by what was going on. He looked around him at the snapping and popping going on at almost every station. He saw the engineering station erupt in flames. The com units were filled with the chatter of the crew doing whatever they could to contain the damage going on all over his ship. He was helpless to do anything as his ship was being torn apart around him.

  Knowing that it wouldn’t do any good, he shouted to the unknown beings of energy. “Enough! You are tearing my ship apart and hurting my crew.” Abruptly, everything stopped and the ship was spit out of the anomaly into normal space.

  Chapter 2

  The damage reports coming in from all areas of the ship made it clear to Jerrell that his ship was going to need more than what he had on board to repair it. The main engines were dead. The only way to power the ship anywhere were the propulsion engines used only to maneuver in orbit around planets. Using those engines would not get them home in his lifetime, if there was even a way to get home from here.

  Jerrell was meeting with all of his department heads two days after the anomaly had spit them out in this desolate area of space and most of the news he was being told wasn’t good. They weren’t going anywhere. No one knew where they were so they couldn’t count on a rescue from anyone. The long range communications were down but they could be fixed. The problem there was who were they going to call? No, they were on their own.

  “I don’t know where we are, Captain Jerrell. There is nothing on the star maps in this area of space. I know where we were before we entered that thing but now....” The astrologer shrugged in apology at not being able to provide any information.

  “What can you tell me about this area of space?” Jerrell asked him.

  “There is not much out here. The only planet that has any signs of intelligent life within our sensor range would, under different circumstances, be ideal for us to colonize. There are nine planets and only one is inhabited. They are a very primitive people though. They still use animals to get around and they have no computers of any kind at all.” That point completely baffled the man and it showed on his face.

  “They may be a young civilization,” Jerrell pointed out.

  “I don’t think so, sir. There are indications of advanced civilizations that don’t seem to exist anymore.”
Bukar replied. His skin was a soft yellow and the gills on the side of his neck moved in and out with every breath. From the faint blue tint under the yellow Jerrell knew the man had been out of the water for much too long and would need to take a break after this, to go soak in the saltwater pool for a few hours. Bukar continued, “I think that we are not the first aliens or even the first Merrots to come through that anomaly and get stuck here.”

  Jerrell gave that some thought. If there were others of their kind here then the decision he had to make might not be as bad as he thought. He was sure that each of the men and women sitting around the table had come to the same conclusions he had, but no one was willing to be the first to voice it aloud. His eyes met Senia’s. They weren’t going anywhere for the foreseeable future.

  “Alright, everyone. Do what you have to do, to get your departments up and running. Bukar, send a probe to the water planet and gather what information you can. See if you can find any settlements of any alien species, especially our people. If they are there I want to know about it right away.” He turned to Senia, “What about the crew that fell unconscious? Are they all going to be all right?”

  “Yes, they suffered no damage other than a headache. They all mentioned that it felt like something or someone was trying to burrow into their brains.”

  “I felt a buzzing in the back of my head but nothing like what they felt.” Jerrell told her.

  “I talked to several members of the crew who reported the same thing. I think that the dancing ribbons are a form of energy that is alive. I believe that they were trying to communicate with us, not hurt us.”

  “I believe that, too. I just wish they had chosen someone else to talk to,” he said with a wry twist of his lips.

  Jerrell and Senia were sitting in her office drinking hot cups of trillis. Jerrell had started coming to her office late at night to share a drink and unwind after the day’s frustration. The first night he had caught her unawares. She had been deep into studying the patients’ charts long after she should have retired for the night, when he had walked in. She had been wary, expecting him to be his usual abrupt self. He wasn’t and the pleasant conversation had thrown her for a loop. Since then, she made sure she was at her desk at the same time every night on the chance he would come by. Neither one mentioned the coincidence but both looked forward to spending this time together. Tonight, they were talking about the announcement Jerrell planned to make to the crew the next morning.