Claimed by the Alien: A Scifi Alien Romance (Fated Mates of the Titan Empire Book 6)

single road.
The tribe was largely forgotten by the rest of the empire, but the tribespeople did not forget. Every day, they crested a hill they called “Emperor’s Peak” that overlooked the forest and gazed admiringly at the large building perched on a hill in the far distance.
“What is it?” I said.
“The emperor,” the tribe’s chief said. “He lives there.”
He gave me a spyglass to peer through. I saw the shining majesty of the palace in all its splendor. Funny, I thought, that someone so powerful should live in the lap of luxury over there while the people here struggled to get by.
Not that they complained. They were good, kind people. Warriors who still held to the old ways. But even here, they were not untouched by technology.
They had TVs that projected holographic images. Although they often cut out due to a bad signal, and they had to fix the machines often, they were a valuable insight into the goings-on in the rest of the Titan’s vast empire.
Then came the big news.
On the holographic TV, we watched as the emperor’s palace was struck by a marauding squadron of Changeling warships.
It was like watching a science fiction movie. Except it was really happening.
The Urcim tribe were beside themselves. In their minds, the emperor was nothing short of a god. They came running outside, disbelieving what the TV was showing them, and climbed up Emperor’s Peak.
The chief didn’t need to raise his spyglass. They could watch with their own eyes the distant speck of light as the palace burst into flames. Even from there, we could hear the explosion.
A deafening thump followed by a wrenching crack.
It wasn’t only the foundations of the palace being destroyed, it was the heart and soul of the local Titans.
They dropped to their knees and wept.
Their emperor wasn’t only a leader. He was the central figure of their entire culture.
If these Changeling creatures wanted to destroy the Titans’ sense of themselves in the galaxy, there wasn’t much they could do worse than killing their emperor.
Shortly after that, bodies began to appear in the river. The Urcim pulled them ashore and checked them for signs of life. They hauled the living to the medical center where I worked and took the dead to their burial site.
The songs of mourning they sang were beautiful but solemn. They sang together, as one. The translation strip on my neck that they’d given me when I first arrived didn’t give me any hint of the song’s meaning.
When I asked a local what the singing meant, they told me it didn’t mean anything. They weren’t words but sounds that conveyed their emotions far more accurately than words ever could.
Every day when they buried those bodies, the song was different.
The headstones were marked with the same word, a word I later learned meant “sibling.”
It was a dark day in Titan history and I wondered why I had to be present for it.
It was then I began to hear angry whispers of revenge. The tribe, like all Titans, was a warrior race. They were peaceful unless threatened. The warriors—both male and female—reached for their weapons.
They were primitive weapons for the most part, although the chief carried a blaster pistol that looked like something from a science fiction movie in his large hands. The chief was angry like the others but he refused to allow the Titans and his people to head into battle.
He pointed to the thatch of wood perched upon Emperor’s Peak that he referred to as the “beacon.”
“The beacon is not lit,” he said. “We cannot attack. We must wait until it is lit.”
The Warriors were angry but they heeded their chief’s words. They put down their weapons and washed the war paint from their faces and arms.
But that look in their eyes, that angry, defiant look, remained the same.
When the beacon was lit—if it ever was—the Titans would be quick to gather their weapons and attack.
And I would join them in their march to the city. I might not be much of a fighter but I would help them patch up their injured during the battle. The chief told me these Changeling creatures were the ones responsible for me being abducted in the first place.
They were the reason I was so far from home.
Once the war was over, I would jump on the nearest interstellar ship and return to Earth. I just didn’t belong here.
There was a lot of talk about something referred to as their “Emperor’s Army” too. As far as I could make out, it was a place where Titans pulled back to in times of war. They joined with all Titan survivors so they could mount an effective attack on their enemy.
A young warrior called Okem told me about it.
“The Emperor’s Army changes location each year,” he said. “The chiefs across the planet meet and decide where the Emperor’s Army will be. None of the elected officials or even the emperor himself knows where that location is. It’s so we the people can fight against any invasive force that threatens us without need of leadership from above.”
Of all the places I could have wound up, why did it have to be here? Or even if it was here in the middle of the forest, why did it have to be right in the middle of a freaking intergalactic war?!
It was mid-morning the next day when Fiath awoke again. He mumbled words in his sleep that I couldn’t make out. He seemed surprised to find himself in the medical center.
I placed a hand on his shoulder and eased him back down.
“Sh,” I said. “Take it easy. You’re okay now.”
He relaxed and smacked his lips.
“Did you have a bad dream?” I said.
“Not a dream,” he said. “A memory. How I ended up like this.”
“Soon, it’ll be nothing but a distant memory. Then you can forget all about it.”
“I doubt I’ll ever forget what happened.”
It was the same with every Titan, injured or otherwise. They found it hard to believe they might now