Rescued by the Alien Barbarian: Warriors or Warden, #4

By Sierra York

Due to a brief, accidental foray onto an alien spacecraft, Carissa is being interrogated and quarantined by the religious rulers of Earth. The only thing that keeps her going are her brief daydreams about one of the aliens. She's offered the choice between living in shame or being sent to an unpopulated area, where she would have to quickly learn to defend herself to survive.

Grys can't get the beautiful Earth woman, Carissa, out of his mind. He tries to talk to her through a telepathic connection he knows can't really exist. But when he gets a distress call from her, he hightails it back to Earth, weapons at the ready. 

Will he be in time to save her?
Or will she have made the worst choice imaginable?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sierra York
• Release date: Sep 13, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386842378

Book preview

Due to a brief, accidental foray onto an alien spacecraft, Carissa is being interrogated and quarantined by the religious rulers of Earth. The only thing that keeps her going are her brief daydreams about one of the aliens. She's offered the choice between living in shame or being sent to an unpopulated area, where she would have to quickly learn to defend herself to survive.

Grys can't get the beautiful Earth woman, Carissa, out of his mind. He tries to talk to her through a telepathic connection he knows can't really exist. But when he gets a distress call from her, he hightails it back to Earth, weapons at the ready.

Will he be in time to save her?

Or will she have made the worst choice imaginable?

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Chapter One

Carissa closed her eyes and tried to picture some of the beautiful places she’d seen in books over the years. She hopped from image to image—ocean to mountains, desert to rain forest—in a desperate attempt to escape her current reality. She’d known the Theocracy had closed the planet long before she’d been born, but their exaggerated attempts to keep Earth segregated from the rest of the universe had suddenly turned into a personal crisis for her.

An image that had nothing to do with scenery infiltrated her mind. Her friend Maria’s face appeared before her. Carissa’s gut clenched at the sight. If it hadn’t been for Maria and her poor decision making skills, she wouldn’t be in the mess she was in. She would be finishing up her exams, so she could stop studying and start her work teaching. Maybe she’d even be preparing for her wedding. Thanks to Maria, her future was completely hanging in the balance. She’d been trying for weeks to convince the powers that be that she was clean. She hadn’t touched the aliens, or allowed them to touch her. She knew they didn’t believe her, though.

Carissa opened her eyes and stared at the deep gray ceiling above her. The thought of her return to Earth made her heart speed, rendering her incapable of keeping her eyes shut. She remembered it like it had just happened: one minute she was involved in a scuffle on a space ship, and the next she was crumpled in a heap on the ground, tangled up with a male she’d never met.

As soon as they’d been able to separate from each other, the male had taken out his communication device and began rambling into it. Minutes later, before either of them could speak, a slew of men in khaki uniforms had shown up. They’d thrown a blanket around her shoulders and crooned to her while loading her in a vehicle and driving off. She’d not seen the man since. As she lay there staring at the ceiling, she wondered what had happened to him. 

The quiet scraping of the doorknob turning made Carissa jump from her resting place. She quickly sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. It wasn’t much of a bed...more of a table with a few blankets. It was cold and hard, and she’d not stopped feeling frozen to her core since she’d arrived. With her feet now close to the floor Carissa watched the door, waiting for it to open. Her muscles were tight in anticipation even though she knew there was no way to escape. She’d tried many times throughout the last few weeks. It was useless. She gripped the edge of the bed until her knuckles were white. As pain began to make her fingers ache, movement from the corner of her eye distracted her from the door. She turned to look at the corner where she’d seen the flash of purple. A smile formed on her lips despite her surroundings. He was beautiful; tall, blond, and muscular. After a few moments of staring, reality hit her and fear clawed at her skin, setting it on fire. She shook her head frantically. No. No. You have to go. Please. They’ll catch you. You need to stay safe. They’re looking for you. They’ll hurt you. Please go, she whispered to him with tears running down her cheeks.

His eyes bored into hers, and he opened his mouth to respond...but then the door opened, and the breeze it pushed through the room caused him to blend with the wind. He’d vanished. Tears coated Carissa’s cheeks. They were bright red and chapped from repeated crying, but the sharp sting the fresh tears brought reminded her she hadn’t given up yet. She was still alive.

Carissa didn’t bother looking toward the door. She knew they’d come for her. Sure enough, a rough hand grabbed her upper arm a second later. Up. Let’s go.

She’d barely seen a male in her life, and now one was touching her. Hurting her, actually. His hand was very tight around her arm, and she squirmed, trying to loosen his grip.

Knock it off, or I’ll squeeze tighter.

Carissa’s head was down, flopping on her neck and bouncing like a rag doll’s. She couldn’t see the male, but she knew him by the gravel in his voice. It was the big guard. He had dark hair that he shaved really close to his scalp, and cold gray eyes. He was always smiling—but it wasn’t endearing or friendly in any way. It was a menacing smile that shook up souls rather than reaching his eyes. A shiver ran through her at his words.

Carissa hadn’t really been physically harmed. Handled roughly, yes. But not harmed. The creepy man pulling her down the hall now was the worst one, and even he let things go with an evil laugh and an extra hard squeeze to her arm or neck before pushing her back into her room. They’d called it a room, but it felt like a cell. It was a cell. It was cold and hard and lonely. Except in the moments that Grys visited her.

She thought about him as the orderly ushered her into a room with an examination table in it. He let her go once they were inside. Get undressed and sit on the table, he told her, as he rifled through drawers in a cupboard that stood in the farthest corner of the room. He tossed something at her. Put this on and nothing else. He glared at her as she