Owned by the Alien: A Scifi Alien Romance (Fated Mates of the Titan Empire Book 1)

shook us left to right and kicked up a thick cloud of smoke.
Hazel screamed. The girls sleeping in the back—previously unaware of what was happening—bolted to attention.
“What in God’s name is going on?” Victoria said.
“We just want to get our beauty sleep for the wedding tomorrow,” Maddy said. “Can’t you be quiet for one minute? Oh.”
They both turned to face the immense light that streamed through the windows and turned the world white.
“What the hell is going on?” Victoria said. “Is a helicopter chasing us?”
Hazel was too scared to answer her. And I was too busy trying to escape.
The smell of burning rubber filled the cab until even Bianca and Sirena noticed it.
Sirena screwed up her face. “Victoria! Will you stop farting for five seconds?”
The minivan rose off the road. There was no doubt in my mind that this thing, whatever it was, was going to take us with it.
Honk!
Honk honk hoooonk!
The light blinked out and we fell the few inches it managed to lift us.
Honk!
The noise grew louder.
In the rearview mirror, the headlights of a large truck raced toward us, growing louder, brighter, and closer.
The engine had stalled. I turned the key in the ignition and muttered a silent prayer as the engine roared back into life.
I slammed my foot on the gas. The minivan bolted forward as if it’d been stung. The cliffside reared up fast. I swung the wheel and worked around the long curve, struggling to keep ahead of the truck behind us.
The girls in the back screamed as we came within inches of sailing over the edge. My hands shook so violently I could barely keep them on the wheel.
I was all over the road, struggling to keep us straight. A car heading in the opposite direction flashed its headlights at us.
Unable to focus, I rode the dirt shoulder and let the truck overtake us. He blasted his horn one last time and barreled down the road, tail lights glowing like red eyes.
We sat there, panting for oxygen, struggling to breathe, puzzling over what we’d seen.
“W-What was it?” Hazel said, her voice barely a whisper.
“I… I don’t know,” I said.
But that wasn’t true. I knew what it was. We all knew what it was.
“It was… It was… a… a…” Victoria said.
“No, it wasn’t,” Sirena said. “It couldn’t be. They don’t exist.”
“I know what it was,” Maddy said. “We all do.”
“I’m with Sirena,” Bianca said. “It was a trick of the light, that’s all.”
“And the minivan rising into the air like that?” Hazel said.
“A figment of our imagination,” Bianca said.
But her face was pale, her eyes wide and bulbous. Somehow, she still managed to look gorgeous.
“If it was a… a… you know,” Sirena said. “How are we still here? It should have sucked us up by now.”
“It would have,” I said. “But the truck came in the nick of time and stopped it.”
Out the front windshield, the big truck’s taillights shrank as they wound around a wide bend that would take it to the other side of the mountain.
The other side of the mountain.
The truck would be gone and we’d be alone again.
I turned the key in the ignition and pulled out without checking my mirrors.
“I’m not sure you should be driving,” Sirena said. “I mean, if you’re seeing things that aren’t really there…”
I kept my eyes focused on that truck and didn’t slow down as I took each bend of the road. I usually kept strictly between my lines but tonight was different.
“Can you slow down?” Bianca said. “I’ve never known you to speed before, Alice.”
“If we lose sight of that truck, that thing is going to come for us again,” I said. “We have to catch up to it.”
“We’re not going to catch up to anything if we slam into the cliffs—”
“Sirena,” Hazel said, not taking her eyes off the road. “You know I love you, but shut the fuck up. Let Alice concentrate.”
Sirena was just scared like the rest of us, but if we wanted to avoid seeing that bright light again, I needed to focus.
Two minutes of driving like a madwoman, I caught up to the truck. The tension in my muscles eased and I hung back at a safe distance. I didn’t care if the truck was slow. It could get us home safely. That was all that mattered.
The others relaxed too. They no longer slept or listened to deafening music. They stared out the windows, peering up at the twinkling stars and the dead of night. Never before had the night sky seemed so dangerous.
All memory of the bright light faded. We’d probably just drank too much. That was all. We imagined everything.
I ignored the fact I hadn’t drunk so much as a single drop. Alcohol was as good an explanation as anything else, and that was all I needed to get on with my life.
I started to smile. So did the others.
The horror was over.
And then the truck signaled.
It was going to pull onto another road, heading somewhere other than New York.
“Uh, guys,” I said. “We need a decision pronto.”
They peered out the windshield and noticed the winking orange light.
“The asshole is turning off?” Maddy said. She rarely swore. “He can’t do this to us!”
“Looks that way,” I said. “Do we follow or do we head home?”
“Whatever happened to us before is over,” Hazel said. “It’s gone. I say we head home.”
How can she be so sure? “Do you really want to travel these roads with no truck to protect us?”
“I vote we get home as soon as possible,” Bianca said. “To hell with the truck.”
“Listen to you guys,” Sirena said. “Jumping at shadows.”
“It wasn’t a shadow,” Victoria said. “It was a bright white light coming from the sky.”
Sirena rolled her eyes. “I vote to head home. We can’t follow the truck forever.”
“I’d rather get home eventually than not get home at all,” Victoria said. “I vote to follow the truck.”
“That’s three to head home, one to follow the truck,” Hazel said. “Maddy?”
“Truck!” she eked.
Hazel turned to me. “You