Hunted By Vhaz (Alien Mate Hunt #3)

Kass

The pen shakes in my hand. Not fear—rage makes my fingers tremble against the cheap plastic. Twenty-three boxes stare up at me from the contract, each one another way to sign my life away. Each initial another acknowledgment that my brother dies if I don't let aliens fuck me.

“Ms. Wykoff.” The intake coordinator's voice cuts through recycled air that tastes like bleach and desperation. She doesn't look up from her tablet. “You need to initial all the boxes.”

Tommy's execution date sits in my mind: forty-eight hours if I walk out now. The government's leverage, perfectly calculated. Frame the hacker who exposed their black-market organ trade, threaten the only family she has left.

“I'm reading.”

Not a lie. I am reading. Every word of this garbage contract that tries to make sexual slavery sound consensual. My eyes scan the legal terminology while my brain translates the actual meaning. I've read enough code to recognize when language is trying to hide something ugly.

Initial here to confirm you understand serpentine species possess unique reproductive anatomy designed for extended mating sessions.

Unique. Extended. I don't need the details.

Whatever aliens do to breed, I'll find out if they catch me.

The briefing video plays on loop on the waiting room screens but I keep my eyes on the contract.

Thirty-foot snake bodies with humanoid torsos is all I need to know.

The rest? My anger doesn't have room for those nightmares yet.

I write my initials. K.W.

Initial here to acknowledge the preparation tonic will cause permanent physiological changes including but not limited to: heightened sensitivity, increased production of natural lubricants, and persistent reproductive readiness.

Persistent. Permanent. Forever wet and wanting, even if I make it back. Even if I survive thirty days being hunted through an alien swamp. My body will never stop craving what it's been programmed to need.

K.W.

The coordinator shifts her weight, bored. We're just credits to her. Resources being traded to aliens for medical technology and fuel cells. Everyone pretends it's voluntary. Cultural exchange. Not desperation wearing a diplomatic mask.

“The serpentine species are particularly effective hunters,” she drones, still staring at her screen. “Ninety-four percent claiming rate.”

“Just say they're good at raping humans.”

That makes her look up. Dead eyes in a face that's processed too many women to care about one more angry hacker. “The contract specifies that surrender is always a choice.”

“Right. Choose to surrender or choose to die. Very generous.”

She returns to her tablet. “Initial box seventeen.”

Initial here to confirm you understand that refusal to mate after capture may result in increased aggression from pursuing hunters.

I laugh. Sharp and bitter. “So they get violent if you don't fuck them willingly. How is that different from Earth?”

“Box seventeen, Ms. Wykoff.”

K.W.

I've hacked enough government databases to know how this really works. The women who don't come back—the ninety-four percent—some choose to stay. Some die. Some disappear into breeding programs. The reports get sanitized, the families get credits, and Earth keeps getting alien tech.

But Tommy needs me to do this. My baby brother who trusted his sister to expose the truth, who got arrested for my crimes when they couldn't find me fast enough. Twenty years old and facing execution because I thought I could change the world with leaked documents.

Initial here to acknowledge that serpentine mating practices include... technical terms I don't bother reading.

My eyes glaze over the details. Something about anatomy, something about duration. I don't care. The pen moves on autopilot now, anger driving it forward. They could write anything in these boxes—I still have to sign them to save Tommy.

K.W.

“Five more boxes,” the coordinator says.

Initial here to confirm you understand the neurological implant will provide basic translation but cannot convey full cultural context.

Initial here to acknowledge that the host planet's environment contains multiple aphrodisiac compounds that will amplify tonic effects.

Initial here to waive Earth legal protections upon crossing the portal threshold.

K.W. K.W. K.W.

Each initial feels like cutting something away. My autonomy. My choices. My future. But Tommy's life hangs in the balance, and I'm the one who put it there. My crusade. My consequences. His death sentence.

“Box twenty-two is about breeding compatibility,” the coordinator says, highlighting something on her tablet. “The serpentine species—”

“I don't need a biology lesson. Just tell me where to sign.”

She pauses, probably deciding if it's worth the effort to continue. “Initial here.”

K.W.

“Last box acknowledges that the thirty-day survival period begins upon portal entry. The return portal opens at the same coordinates exactly seven hundred and twenty hours later.”

Seven hundred and twenty hours. Thirty days of being hunted by something built to catch me. Thirty days of my body screaming for what wants to breed me. Thirty days to endure so Tommy gets to live.

I sign the last box with enough force to tear through the paper.

The coordinator takes the contract, scans it with her tablet. “Proceed to Medical Bay Three for implant insertion.”

Medical Bay Three is just the old Macy's with surgical equipment. They kept the overhead lighting—harsh fluorescents that make everyone look sick. Four other women wait in plastic chairs. Two cry silently. One stares at nothing. The fourth rocks slightly, whispering what sounds like prayer.

A tech in scrubs that have seen better days calls my name. “Wykoff, Kassandra?”

“Just Kass.”

“This way.”

The surgical chair looks like a dental chair's aggressive cousin. The tech gestures for me to sit, starts pulling out equipment. The neural implant is tiny—maybe rice grain-sized—but the insertion tool looks like something from a horror movie.

“This will hurt,” the tech says, not bothering with bedside manner. “The implant integrates with your brain stem. You'll have a headache for a few hours.”

“Just do it.”

She positions the tool at the base of my skull. “Three, two—”

Fire. White-hot fire boring into my skull. My hands grip the chair arms hard enough to crack my knuckles. The pain spreads from the insertion point through my entire nervous system, synapses firing in protest as alien tech rewrites my neural pathways.

“Integration successful,” the tech says, already cleaning up. “You'll start understanding basic Vhazian in about an hour. Proceed to Preparation Room Two.”

I stand, head spinning. The implant pulses at the base of my skull, a foreign presence making itself at home. Other women in the waiting room watch me leave. We don't make eye contact. No point in bonding with people you'll never see again.

Preparation Room Two reeks of copper and moss. The smell hits before I even open the door—organic and wrong, nothing that should exist on Earth. Inside, another coordinator waits with a tray of vials.

“Preparation tonic,” she explains, holding up one iridescent green cylinder. “You'll consume this, then proceed immediately to the portal chamber.”

The liquid inside moves wrong, too viscous, catching light that shouldn't exist. I take the vial. It's warm. Slightly pulsing, like it's alive.

“Effects begin within minutes,” the coordinator continues. “Heightened arousal, increased sensitivity, elevated body temperature. These will intensify over the first few hours.”

“Bottoms up.” I unscrew the cap, knock back the contents before I can think about it.

Copper and moss and something else. Something that tastes like sex should taste if sex had a flavor. It burns going down, then spreads warmth through my chest, my stomach, lower. My nipples harden immediately, visible through my thin shirt. Between my legs, wetness begins pooling.

“Fuck.”

“Normal reaction. Portal Room Seven. Down the hall, last door on the right.”

I leave before she can say anything else. The hallway stretches forever, each step making my thighs slide together, already slick. My clit throbs in time with my heartbeat. My skin feels too sensitive, clothes scratching like sandpaper against nerve endings that suddenly care about every sensation.

Portal Room Seven used to be a department store. They left the escalators but removed the steps, creating weird metal sculptures that frame the portal itself—a tear in reality that hurts to perceive directly. Energy bleeds from it, purple-white wrongness that makes my teeth ache.

Three other women stand at the threshold. We're all flushed, breathing hard, fighting the tonic's effects with varying success. One has her hand pressed between her legs, beyond caring about dignity.

“Wykoff, Kassandra?” A guard checks his tablet.

“Yeah.”

“Portal's ready. Remember—thirty days. Same coordinates. Don't be late.”

I step toward the tear in space. Through it, I can see glimpses of alien swamp. Bioluminescent trees. Water that glows wrong colors. Three moons hanging in a green-tinted sky.

“Fuck this,” I mutter, and step through.

The transition feels like being turned inside out while orgasming. Every nerve fires at once. The tonic responds to the portal energy, sending waves of need through my body so intense I almost drop to my knees on the other side.

I stumble forward into humid air that tastes like batteries and rotting vegetation. The gravity's wrong—lighter than Earth but not enough to matter. My feet sink into soft ground that glows faintly where I step.

Everything here luminescences. The trees pulse with blue-white veins. Flowers open to reveal centers that burn orange-gold. The water—everywhere water—shifts between green and purple depending on the angle. Even the air shimmers with floating spores that spark when they collide.

The arousal hits harder on this side. Whatever's in the atmosphere amplifies the tonic's effects. An empty, angry pulse starts between my legs, a void demanding to be filled. My nipples ache against my shirt. Every breath brings more aphrodisiac spores into my lungs.

I force myself to think through the haze. Shelter first. Higher ground. Defensive position.

A massive tree rises from the swamp, its roots creating natural caves above the water line. I wade toward it, trying to ignore how the liquid makes my clit pulse with each step. The water's warm, almost body temperature, and slightly viscous. Like swimming through lubricant.

By the time I reach the tree, my hands shake with need. I pull myself up into the root cave, clothes soaked and clinging. The space is big enough to lie down in, protected on three sides. Safe as anywhere will be in this nightmare.

Night falls faster than Earth. The three moons rise—two silver, one that burns red. Their light makes the swamp glow brighter, every surface reflecting wrongly. I can hear things moving in the water. Large things. Hunting things.

My body doesn't care about the danger. The tonic owns me now, every cell screaming for contact. For friction. For something to ease the empty ache that's building toward pain.

I try to handle it myself. Fingers between my legs, working my clit with angry desperation. But it's not enough. The tonic wants something specific. Something I can't give myself. I come three times and it only makes the need worse, like scratching an itch that spreads with contact.

“Fuck!” I slam my fist against the root wall. Then again. “Fuck this place! Fuck these aliens! Fuck their fucking aphrodisiac swamp!”

Something large moves in the water below. Watching. Waiting.

I pull my clothes back on, curl into the corner of my shelter. Thirty days. Seven hundred and twenty hours. I can survive this. I've survived worse. Haven't I?

The three moons stare down at me—alien eyes judging Earth's latest offering. My pussy throbs in time with my heartbeat. My skin burns for touch that won't come from my own hands. Every breath brings more spores, more chemicals, more need.

Twenty-three boxes. One brother's life. Thirty days in hell.

I glare up at the moons, teeth clenched against the sob that wants to escape.

“Fuck this place.”