Page 27 of Roping Her Alien Ranchers

I wrapped my hands around it, ignoring the splinter embedding itself deeper into my thumb and the stinging cut along my palm where it had scraped against a jagged piece of metal. Blood welled from the wound, trickling down my wrist and dripping onto the ground, but it wasn’t important. All that mattered was getting to Artie.

With the pitchfork clutched firmly, I sprinted across the yard, leaving droplets of blood in my wake. My boot laces came undone, and the clunky shoes threatened to trip me with every stride. A strange slickness coated random areas of gravel and grass, making every footfall treacherous. I nearly slipped twice, catching myself at the last moment. The distance to the pasture—normally a pleasant two-minute stroll—stretched before me like miles of obstacle course.

But I had to keep going. I could see them clearly now.

Three monstrosities looming over my sweet horse.

As I ran, I caught glimpses of Mystery and Sassafras in their paddock, pressed against the far fence, eyes rolling with terror as they watched the aliens. For once, they stood side by side, their mutual dislike forgotten in the face of a greater threat. Any other day, I would have marked this as progress in my breeding efforts. Today, I barely registered it.

"Get away from him!" I screamed as I approached the pasture fence, my voice stronger now, fueled by protective fury. "Leave my horse alone, you... you freaks!"

The creatures turned at the sound of my voice, their strange bodies shifting and pulsing with new patterns of color. One of them—the largest, with primarily blue-purple skin at the moment—extended a tentacle in my direction. I couldn't tell if the gesture was threatening or curious, but I didn't care. All I knew was that these things had destroyed my barn, knocked me unconscious, and were now terrorizing my elderly horse.

I vaulted over the lowest rail of the fence with more agility than I knew I possessed, landing hard on the other side. Pain shot up from my ankle, but I ignored it, raising the pitchfork like a spear as I charged toward the creatures.

"I said, get away from my horse!" I bellowed, my voice cracking with emotion. "I don't know what you are or where you came from, but you touch one hair on his mane, and I swear I'll turn you into sushi!"

The threat was ridiculous—I knew that even as it left my mouth. What could I, a lone woman with a rusty pitchfork, do against three creatures that had survived a crash that obliterated a barn? But logic be damned. I had to save my Artie from whatever these things were planning to do to him!

As I got closer, a new scent hit me. It was simultaneously foreign, yet also oddly familiar. It reminded me of the beach, of crashing waves, of knocking back an ice-cold beer while my toes pushed into warm sand. The intoxicating tapestry of smells made my steps falter even as my grip tightened on the pitchfork and my pulse quickened. Beneath the alien strangeness was something I recognized on a genetic level—the unmistakable musk of Alphas. Not human but pulsing against my Omega in the most delicious way.

My instincts screamed conflicting messages—submit, run, fight, protect. I steeled myself, needful warmth pooling in my belly, and chose the last. I placed myself between the creatures and Artie, pitchfork raised and feet planted firmly in the Kansas soil that was, for better or worse, my home.

"You want him?" I snarled. "You go through me first."

The three aliens, their movements so perfectly synchronized it seemed choreographed, flowed across the ground toward me. I’d been drowning in fear the first time I’d faced the trio. Now, the details of them were obvious under the unforgiving daylight. They were even more impossible than I remembered. More wrong. More warped. Their bodies—bulbous, glistening, and writhing with tentacles—were an offense to everything I’d previously called real. Each abomination stood at least seven feet tall, though their heights fluctuated as they moved. Physical dimensions were merely suggestions rather than laws for these creatures.

One pulled ahead of its companions. It pulsed with blues and greens that shifted across its skin like northern lights compressed into a living form. Its tentacles were longer than the others', moving with a fluid grace that reminded me of underwater documentaries I'd seen of octopi navigating coral reefs. What might have been a face was smooth and featureless, save for two silvery orbs that reflected the morning sun like polished chrome.

The second creature was slightly smaller, its skin rippling with patches of deep purple and angry red that flowed and merged into each other. Unlike the blue-green mass, this one's movements were precise, almost mechanical in their efficiency. Its tentacles remained closer to its main body, and I noticed that one appeared shorter than the others, as if it were injured or deformed.

The third, standing slightly behind the others, was the most dynamic in appearance. Its coloration swirled in constant motion—yellows bleeding into oranges, then earthy browns, then back again. It seemed to vibrate with a nervous energy, its tentacles twitching and curling in patterns that made my eyes hurt to follow.

Were the creatures this mesmerizing last night? Were they so visually overwhelming that it nearly hurt to watch them move?

All three glistened with a slick, gelatinous coating that caught the sunlight and refracted it in prismatic bursts. When they floated across the ground, they left moist trails behind, like enormous slugs.

Enormous, fast slugs with a deeper purpose than just existing.

Behind me, Artie let out another frightened whinny, followed by the sound of hooves scrambling across packed dirt as he retreated, using my presence as an escape shield. I turned for a heartbeat—and it was terrifying to take my focus from the aliens for even those few seconds— finding my old boy shoved into the far-right corner of the fenced paddock. The elderly Appaloosa's dappled gray, Appaloosa-spotted coat trembled visibly even from a distance, his tail tucked tight against his body, signaling fear. At least he had the sense to run. My own instincts screamed at me to do the same, but my feet remained planted, the aged pitchfork still raised between me and the aliens like the world's most inadequate shield.

"Back off, you weird octo-monsters!" I shouted, trying to sound fierce but I was unable to hide the fear that made my voice crack. "This is private property! My property!"

The absurdity of treating extraterrestrial visitors like trespassers—as if they’d freaking care that my name was on the deed to this chunk of land—wasn't lost on me, but this cosmically strange situation wasn’t exactly breeding rational thought. My hands shook so badly that my makeshift weapon trembled, its dull tines bobbing up and down.

The aliens made a series of sounds in response—wet, squelching noises punctuated by clicks and what sounded disturbingly like bubbles popping underwater. They were communicating again, just like last night, though their bodies weren’t currently cycling through a million colors. I wondered in passing if how they looked now was their natural state. Cool waters of the first. Hot like summer, almost threatening colors of the second. Earthy, Autumnal palette of the third.

The gyrating, sticky monster with crimson rippling through its amethyst skin base, lifted one suckered arm and pointed its tip at me.

I realized with a fresh wave of terror that these weren't mindless creatures—hell, I already knew that, but being pointed at by a scary, giant monster makes you hyperaware of the threat you’re facing.

“Why the hell are you pointing at me!” I meant to shout, but the syllables came out in a garbled mess.

My mind began to imagine what they might have done to Artie had I not intervened. Kill him? Eat him? Dissect him for some sick, cosmic research?

The ocean skinned one took a step forward, its massive body flowing over the ground rather than walking on it. With each movement, it seemed to grow larger, expanding in both height and width until it loomed over me like a living tidal wave. It gave me flashbacks to the night before, with them looming over me. Two of its tentacles extended outward, reaching toward me with an almost gentle curiosity that was somehow more terrifying than aggression would have been.

Its scent hit me.