Lily and the Lion by Honey Phillips
Chapter One
“Fuck!” Lily screamed as the escape pod rocketed towards a planet far below. She had been shoved into the pod with no explanation by one of the alien bastards who had kidnapped her. In her attempt to resist, she had managed to land a solid kick to his balls before he was able to restrain her legs. He had responded by slapping her across the face. Her cheekbone still throbbed, but it wasn’t the first time she’d been hit. She’d survive the blow.
Whether or not she was going to survive this descent was an entirely different matter. The air inside the pod kept getting hotter, and she could hear a terrifying rattle that reminded her of the sound her old car used to make just before it broke down. Periodically the pod would hitch a little, as if it was trying to slow, but it never seemed to have any effect.
Through the small porthole, she glimpsed the rapidly approaching planet—wide expanses of ocean and what looked like heavily forested land masses. She didn’t see any signs of civilization—no cities or roads or farms. Maybe that was a good thing, she thought grimly. She’d rather take the chance of surviving on her own than being in the clutches of more aliens.
The land grew closer with dizzying speed, and she braced for impact just as the pod crashed into the trees. She could hear branches breaking beneath her, barely slowing the fall of the pod, but as they grew thicker, the shock of hitting each branch reverberated through the interior until it finally slammed into the ground with stunning force. The pod came to a halt, one side cracking open like an egg.
For a long time, she was too dazed to do anything but stare up at the broken branches and torn leaves above her. The faintly pinkish sky seemed to be a long way away above her, and some distant part of her mind wondered about the size of the trees. The leaves were an odd color as well—green with a slightly reddish tinge.
How did I end up here?
Only a few short weeks ago, she’d thought she might finally have found a place where she wanted to put down some roots. She had been living in the small town of Cosmo Beach for six months, and she liked it. The bar she managed catered to a predominantly local crowd, and even the occasional influx of tourists wasn’t too disruptive. The small apartment above the bar that came with the job was nothing fancy, but it had windows that looked out over the ocean and it was all hers.
But then she discovered that Dave, her bartender and occasional lover, was stealing from the till. When she went to confront him, she’d found him in bed with a waitress she’d considered a friend. The woman’s betrayal hurt much more than his theft.
After firing him, she wandered down to the beach. In all her years of traveling, she’d never lived by the ocean before, but she’d rapidly grown addicted to the sound of the waves and the vast expanse of water, the moon lighting a path to the distant horizon. She was only twenty-six, but she felt old tonight, old and alone. Sometimes it seemed like she spent her whole life running.
She’d left home at sixteen, chasing after Stryker, the improbably named lead singer in a local band. His declarations of undying love hadn’t even lasted six months. She’d genuinely believed that she loved him—and that he loved her. His rejection devastated her, but then his older brother Barry, who managed the band, had taken her under his wing. He offered to let her stay with him, and he didn’t ask anything from her. When she asked him to kiss her, she was convinced that it was her idea. She was with him for almost three years, and it wasn’t until several years after they separated that she realized how easily he had manipulated her.
Barry had left the band after one of his periodic arguments with his brother escalated—and he hadn’t asked her to come with him. At the time, she thought that perhaps their relationship had come to a natural conclusion, but looking back on it afterwards, she sometimes wondered if she had simply become too old for his tastes.
Lily had ended up stepping into his role in managing the band. That had lasted another three years—a slurred landscape of late nights and constant travel, too much alcohol and the wrong kind of men.
After her experiences with Stryker and Barry, she did her best to avoid entanglements, but life on the road had an odd kind of reality. And then one morning she woke up in yet another strange hotel room and realized she had no idea where she was. She didn’t remember what city they were in—she didn’t even know the date. Half a dozen strangers were passed out around the room, and the only person she recognized was Tony, the drummer, asleep in a chair by the window.
With a complete and utter certainty, she knew that this wasn’t what she wanted—she wasn’t sure exactly what she did want, but she knew this wasn’t it. She quietly gathered her small collection of belongings, then went over to Tony. He was a sweet man with long thinning grey hair who had been playing music since before she was born. She kissed his forehead, and he woke up and gave her a sleepy smile.
“What’s up, baby girl?”
“I’m leaving.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “It’s probably time. But I’m going to miss you.”
“I’ll miss you too,” she said sincerely. He had always done his best to look after her in his own lowkey way. She was willing to bet that he’d spent the night in the chair just in case things got out of hand.
Despite the band’s nomadic lifestyle, she’d managed to put some money aside. She could have gone back to school, or tried to do something different with her life. Instead, she drifted into a job as a bartender. Since then she’d had a variety of jobs, but she never ended up staying anywhere longer than six or seven months. Even though she enjoyed most of her jobs, there had always been something to drive her on. A manager with roaming hands or another disastrous relationship or simply the restlessness that prodded her to keep moving. Cosmo Beach had been the first time she’d actually thought of sticking around.
Apparently, the gods had other plans for her.
She’d been sitting quietly on the beach that night when she caught a whiff of something horrible, followed by a sharp pinch to her neck. When she regained consciousness, she was in a small cage next to two other caged women, with an unfamiliar male leering at her.
An alien male. She had been abducted by fucking aliens. The translator they had placed in her ear meant that it was all too easy to understand their intentions. They planned to sell all three of them as sex slaves—and even though she had every intention of fighting, she knew that the odds were against her.
They had been confined to their cages for about two weeks—long enough to form an unbreakable bond between the three women. Kate was a scientist, cool, practical, and smart. Lily admired her intelligence and her determination to find a logical solution to their situations. Mary was quite different, innocent and optimistic. She’d even managed to point out positive aspects about their captors, and Lily believed she genuinely meant them. Of course, she was also the only one who received additional treats and soft words from the despicable bastards.
What happened to them?she wondered now, looking up at the sky. Earlier that day, Eshak, one of the most brutal aliens, had appeared and dragged Kate away without a word.
“What if we never see her again?” Mary had whispered, her eyes wide and frightened.
“We will,” Lily said fiercely, determined to hide her own fears.
But then Eshak had returned for her, and she’d been forced to leave Mary behind. Why? Why had he dragged her into the pod, and why had they sent her to this planet?
She did her best to emulate Kate’s cool logic. It seemed probable that all three of them had been forced into the pods—which meant that her friends could also be somewhere here in the jungle. She had to find them.
She allowed herself a few more moments to recover from the descent, but she refused to give into the dizziness for long. If she’d understood Eshak’s muttered comments correctly, the slavers planned to recover their prizes. She didn’t know how hard it would be for them to find the pod in this immense jungle, but the farther away she was from it, the better.
After wrestling with the restraints across her body, she managed to release them and wiggle free. Very cautiously, she poked her head up through the open side of the pod—and discovered she hadn’t hit the ground after all. The pod was wedged in the crevice between the branch that had stopped its fall and the huge tree trunk supporting the branch. Great. That meant she was going to have to climb down—and she had never been particularly good with heights.
She wiggled her way through the opening, tearing the wretched slave gown in the process. She would have loved to just throw it away, but the thought of being naked in the jungle wasn’t much more appealing. In the end, she ripped the two pieces of white fabric apart. She twisted one piece into a crude bandeau bra and tied the other one around her hips to form a short sarong. Not quite the latest fashion, but at least it was her choice, not something forced on her by the alien slavers.
The climb down to the ground was nerve-wracking at best, despite the fact that the bark of the tree was heavily ridged and provided multiple hand and foot holds. Thank goodness she had been enough of a tomboy in her misspent youth to know how to climb—and that the pod hadn’t crashed too far above the ground. She managed to avoid looking down, but her heart was still pounding when she jumped the last few feet and landed in the loam beneath the trees.
Now what?
