Page 34 of Roping Her Alien Ranchers

She stared up at our trio. The fire surrounding her face capturing sunlight and seeming to burn.

How could this strange, gangly, four-limbed creature be more beautiful than all the females of my home world?

We had come seeking water samples from Earth's oceans. Instead, we had found something far more intriguing—an Omega human whose biochemistry called to us in ways none of us understood, but none of us could resist.

11

TAMMY

Angry and scared is wayyyyy better than aroused and slippery with slick…

“My help?” I stuttered out the question, confusion flooding into every part of my body. “If you needed my help, why the hell were you trying to attack my horse?”

“Attack your horse?” The one who’d caught me as I fell, rippled, body stretching a few inches taller, then shrinking again.

“She must mean the quadruped,” another explained after a brief pause.

“Yes, the big animal on four legs.” I stood up, adrenaline fading and leaving me feeling deflated.

The aliens' scents had been absolutely assaulting me since the second I’d come at them with the old pitchfork—an impossible mixture of ocean depths and something metallic that had no business existing in landlocked Kansas. When they’d reached for me, a tiny, irrational part of me had considered not moving and letting them explore my body. What the hell was my malfunction? Was I that starved for intimacy that a tentacle up my cobweb-covered vagina sounded like a good option?

Thank goodness one of the damn things had stopped himself, and the others, otherwise I might have let them do their worst.

My own scent bloomed around me yet again. Stupid body.

It hadn’t even reacted this way to Derek, and I’d convinced myself he was my future.

My mind was cycling through every alien invasion movie I'd ever seen. This wasn't happening. Couldn't be happening. But the three glistening, color-shifting beings before me were undeniably real, their strange eyes focused entirely on my trembling form… and I didn’t like the way their creepy, metallic eyes watched me with unveiled hunger.

It was good that we understood each other now, though the translator device—or whatever the glowing disc now stuck to my neck was—felt slightly itchy and uncomfortable.

“To be clear, we were not trying to attack your horse.” The creature holding my pitchfork seemed to be smiling. I wasn’t sure what the curve of the mouth meant to them though. Maybe it wasn’t amusement. Maybe it was a threat.

“So why did you surround Artie then?” I could tell saying his name confused them, so I corrected. “My horse. Why did you surround my horse. You were scaring him.”

“We simply approached the horse for assistance,” one answered, its body settling into the color of persimmons.

“You wanted my horse to help you?” I asked, mouth gaping. “How the hell was Artie gonna help you? He doesn’t even have opposable thumbs.” I lifted my hands, sticking both thumbs upright and bending them a few times, showing off how great a hand was in comparison to a hoof.

“The horse seemed like the logical choice,” the same alien said matter-of-factly.

“Right. Sure. A four-legged, hay-eating horse versus a human woman. You’re all dudes, aren’t you?”

“Dudes?” The pitchfork wielder sounded curious.

“Men. Males. Dick measurers, compensating for inadequacies with loud muscle cars or jacked up trucks. You guys give total Alpha energy.” I rolled my eyes. Of all the aliens in the galaxy, I had to get the Derek kind.

“Dudes. I’m going to use that back home.” The alien lifted the pitchfork over his bloated head, supporting it with the curled tips of two tentacles and resting it across what approximately served for shoulders. A breeze kicked up, pushing his saltwater and margarita scent in my direction. It hit me, slipping over my entire body, seeping into my pores, and sending my glandular production into overdrive.

“Back home.” I repeated, words pushing through the haze of my own Omega perfume spilling outward. I wasn’t sure why, but those two words made me realize just how exposed the aliens were while standing in the open field. My eyes darted to the unpaved road beyond my property line, half-expecting to see a convoy of black SUVs already racing toward us, filled with men in hazmat suits and assault rifles.

Why was panic surging inside me? Why did I care if a bunch of men in black arrived to haul the creepy creatures away? My inner Omega recoiled at the thought of the three aliens being sedated and dissected.

"You’re not safe," I whispered, my throat constricting around the words. "You can't stay out here."

The blue green one tilted its head, its skin rippling with curious patterns of light. I forced myself to think past the cocktail of conflicting feelings—attraction, revulsion, fear, terror. If anyone drove by and saw these creatures—these unmistakably alien beings—my life would be over before the bank could even foreclose on my ranch. But that wasn’t the thing that bothered me most. Not my life, but theirs. I wanted, I realized with horror, to protect them.

I wanted to give them a haven. I pictured government agents swarming over Sunflower Hills, cordoning off the property with yellow tape and stern warnings. They'd haul away the ship in my destroyed barn. They'd quarantine my horses for possible contamination. They'd investigate me, dig into my life, discover my failing finances, the overdue bills stacked on my kitchen table, the final notices from the bank. They'd know I was just days away from losing everything. Which didn’t matter, since they’d claim some sort of bullshit eminent domain to seize the ranch regardless.