Riv's Sanctuary: A Sci-fi Alien Romance by A.G. Wilde (best books to read TXT) 📕

mushroom estate, passing more mushroom houses and their orange lawns and well-kept gardens.

It felt like she was driving through a made-up neighborhood on a movie set; it was too perfect and…amazing.

Locked in a terrarium for a year, she couldn’t help but lean out of her box as she took the sights in.

At the zoo, her terrarium had consisted of the single slab and the little stall where she could shower and go to the toilet.

There’d been no color.

Just plain white walls and that unbreakable transparent barrier between her and the outside.

She’d had no idea the world outside was so beautiful.

“What is this planet called?”

Geblit glanced at her, four eyes moving her way in synchrony before he looked ahead once more.

“Hudo three.”

Hudo III.

She’d never heard of it before but she wasn’t surprised.

Earth was so far behind in space exploration, and she’d had a year to think about this, but she was pretty sure it wasn’t the first time the planet had been invaded.

She doubted the governments of Earth even knew.

The hovercar moved smoothly down the streets and, soon, the landscape changed to singular tall white bottle-shaped houses with no lawns or fancy gardens, leaving the mushroom suburbs behind.

These dwellings were less fancy than the mushroom buildings. She could see this even as they sped through the neighborhood.

It also seemed as if Geblit was driving much faster than he had been while they were in the mushroom neighborhood.

A glance at him, and he was staring straight ahead, his four eyes slightly wide and she wasn’t sure if it was the wind causing him to widen them or if it was because he was nervous.

She’d take the latter. His large balloon at the back of his head was pulsing too.

He was nervous about this neighborhood but he’d pushed past the tall, dark aliens with blades like they were nothing?

Glancing around, Lauren’s brows furrowed a little. From the aliens she managed to see, some leaning on hovercars that looked like they were about to fall apart and others sitting on hovering boxes along the street, she could only gather that they were on the bad side of town.

Her eyes slid to Geblit.

She hoped this wasn’t where this friend called Riv lived.

For all she knew, Riv was short for Riv the Pimp.

She was trying to run away from sex with aliens, not toward it.

Shit.

Was this sanctuary some sort of alien crack house?

It could be argued that such places were sanctuaries for some on Earth.

Beggars couldn’t be choosers, but damn, she wanted to choose.

She would ask Geblit but it felt as if even mentioning it would make it true, so she kept her mouth shut instead and waited, praying they would leave this section of town quickly.

It seemed Geblit wanted the same, for as soon as a large, flabby alien hailed them from across the street, Geblit’s four eyes widened even more and the hovercar sped up, shooting down the narrow road and leaving dust in its wake.

In a few minutes, the bottle-shaped houses faded into the background and they were on a flat plain leading to an open savanna.

Here, tall yellow-orange grass swayed in the wind for as far as she could see.

Lauren’s eyes widened as she took in the view, sitting up in her box just so she could see better.

Off in the distance, there were large grazing animals that looked like cows. She knew they weren’t cows, of course, they just looked like cows because of their mannerisms. They took no note of the hovercar, too busy chewing slowly, their heads dipping to the grass as they pulled the blades into their huge maws.

This was so different from being in the zoo that her mouth fell open in awe.

Out here, the world felt free.

The hovercar passed one of the animals close by and she realized it looked like a very chubby brown hippo, except it had large, oval protrusions running down its back. It had no tail either.

Leaning over the hovercar, she let her hand brush against the tall grass as the vessel flew over the savanna.

She was pretty sure she looked like a dog with its head out the window, enjoying the cool breeze. Maybe she was becoming a pet. But, for the moment, she allowed herself to enjoy it.

She’d been trapped in a glass box for a year. She deserved this.

And it was nice.

With such an amazingly beautiful scene in front of her, she could almost forget her circumstances.

If this Riv lived in a nice place like this, he was bound to be a lovely fellow. And it seemed he lived quite far out on this plain.

They’d been traveling for a while now and she hadn’t seen any houses or bits of civilization. She could only assume this Riv was a country boy—or country-whatever species Geblit was.

“So, tell me about this Riv,” she said, bringing her hand back into the vessel. Touching the grass had been nice at first but the constant brush of the blades against her hand was beginning to sting.

“I do not know much about him. But he owes me a favor,” Geblit replied.

Not the answer she was looking for. Not the answer she was looking for at all.

“You don’t know much about him?”

Just perfect, she shouldn’t have expected more.

“Is he a good person at least?”

Geblit only glanced at her, his four eyes blinking before he refocused ahead. The action made her want to close her hands around his skinny little neck and shake him.

“Nice? Is he nice?” she pressed.

Geblit glanced at her again and blinked away.

“Riv is…” But he stopped there.

His hesitation was doing wonders for her adrenal gland.

It was suddenly getting great exercise, meaning that it was pumping adrenaline into her endocrine system as if his hesitation was steroids.

“Riv is what?” she pressed.

“You do not need to know.”

Again, she wanted to wrap her hands around his skinny neck and this time she’d squeeze it till she got some answers.

Thing is, she did need to know. She was the one in a box like some pet being