Lepyrs of Sylvylen Prime: Easter Bunnies Are Aliens

By Jeanette Lynn

I've been kidnapped from Earth and then dumped on a space pancake filled with crazy critters, crewed by alien space bunny people who are of two different minds about what to do with me.
Yeah, that about summed it all up, more or less.

The longer version...
They call themselves Lepyrs. They once hailed from a planet called Sylvylen Prime. That was before their homeworld was destroyed and they found themselves stumbling upon the big blue human filled planet they now orbited.
It went from a typical but crappy dysfunctional family holiday, complete with family drama and shouting matches, forced egg decorating, and an awkward meet and greet with little bro's new girl, to the wild ride of a lifetime.

The catch?

One of the alien men full of not-so-floppy-ears and hoppity looks, thinks they should just wipe any memory of my time aboard their ship from my mind and be done with me, ship me back to Earth and forget any of this ever happened; while the other, well-meaning as he may think he is by it, believes I'd make a fine match for the perpetual grump outranking him.
Sparks fly, taking chunks of fur and a few handfuls of jellybean projectiles and chocolate covered marshmallow eggs with it.

The oddness of the history behind the "Easter bunny "unfolds in this science fiction fantasy romance, full of kooky critters, a fluffy furred crew, and a certain hop-along Lepyr with a penchant for a certain curvy, sassy Earth woman that looks too cute for her own good even when she's glaring at him.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jeanette Lynn
• Release date: May 4, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005013684

Jeanette Lynn

Jeanette Lynn lives with her Neanderthal, beyond awesome kiddlens, mini-dino water-ninja (turtle), slightly eccentric terrier mix, and hobbit pup. She enjoys creating quirky, offbeat characters in out of this world stories. And, of course, a good happy ending.Quirky, offbeat characters in out of this world stories. Finding love in unexpected places.Paranormal, contemporary, fantasy, sci fi, shifters, aliens, magic and matchmaking mayhem, there's a little bit of everything.

Book preview

A Wee Lil Note From The Author

This book is alien romance. You know, romance with an alien that looks like an alien. This might not be your deal, and that’s okay.

I’ve included a nifty dictionary in the back, if you were wondering what some of the Lepyr words used in the book mean.

CHAPTER 1

Ren

It could have been worse, I told myself, contemplating the family gathering I’d let my mother talk me into, questioning my sanity as I laid here, sprawled out on the lawn, regretting caving to that guilt trip and staring up at the stars. It was beautiful out but, honestly, I was just trying to get away from the family for a bit, desperate to salvage my sanity after all of that. Argh.

Oswald’s new girlfriend, Rosemary, was a hoot! Said no one ever. If she gave me one more pouty, pitying look, reaching out to rub my shoulder and assuring me in her tinny, tiny, baby talking voice not to worry, that I’d find someone as wuv-wee as her Ozzy-wozzy, too, I was going to snatch her bald.

Mom and Dad were up to their usual bull, drink heavily, argue over dinner, drink some more, shout at each other as I offered to do the dishes to escape the nasty remarks I really didn’t want to hear, and by the time dessert rolled around they’d branched off to insult their children individually, but did so in a way it was like it was a team effort. My thick buns did not come with a sturdy enough hide to have to sit through that complete and utter crap. The patterns were there, almost to a T. Yet, even as I knew the when and why, the mechanics of it all, had gone through these motions so many times before, the words still penetrated. Consider it the chink in my armor, one of many.

They weren’t simply cheap shots, either, though there was a decent mix. Mom would start in on my weight the second I finally cracked and made some kind of comment commiserating having to sit through their crap, and the woman who birthed me, as was her way, typically reached over to pinch the chub somewhere on my person, then proceed to tell me how she feels my weight equates to my worth. At least, that’s how I’d always taken it. But that was just the warm up.

If a man was going to love me for my worth, it wouldn’t be found in the rolls on my belly or lack thereof. Love didn’t start on the scale. I knew this, I’d been practicing embracing that love thyself-mantra for years. But, it’s hard to just erase years of mental abuse with a dollop of self-loathing. Like the liberally salted rim of one of her tequila heavy margaritas, it was the rub in a never completely healing wound.

Dad might join in, or not, if he was done haranguing Os about how at his age he had yadda-yadda-yadda and he was doing blah-blah-blah. Yeah, Pops, and how happy are you now after breaking your back for all the shit you can’t seem to stop constantly complaining about, hmm? Starting with your unimpressive offspring....

With the addition of Rosemary, Os’s well-meaning but painfully annoying new love interest, and Os offering repeatedly to set me up with one of his friends as he worked his way through a half a dozen beers, between all of that, I’d told them all hours ago I was going to make a grocery run the second Mom complained she didn’t have x thing she absolutely needed for Easter tomorrow. And upon returning to an all-out shouting match between my parents over who drank the last of whatever bottle they’d been plowing through, I didn’t care to know anymore, I’d quietly put the groceries away to sneak off out back.

And here I lay, prone, promising myself never to agree to this stupidity again, even if it saved me from a depressing holiday alone in my tiny, cramped apartment to ponder my disastrous life choices.

Alone was almost better than this.

Hanging around out here was like crashing back to my childhood. I was an adult, yet very much still felt like a kid playing at one most of the time.

Lepus, I mumbled, squinting up at the night sky, connecting those sparkly stars into patterns. Alpha Leporis. You didn’t get this kind of view where I currently resided. Too much congesting the skies, blocking the stars, for a view quite like this.

I’d always loved stars, laying out here for hours for this exact reason during those hot, humid summers—an escape. It was kind of my thing, hide and go seek out the constellations.

Frowning slightly, wondering when the Lepus constellation, the hare, had acquired a bright blue winking star offsetting it, or if it had been so long since I’d done this I was forgetting, this led me to the odd tangent of late: Damn, I’m getting old. Mid-thirties was the new eighty, it felt like anymore, I thought, then laughed at the idea. Thirty six was far from ancient, but I felt like I was wasting away, spending my time toiling at a job that paid well but not in regards to comfortably making it in the area I lived in. I was a single woman living on my own. I paid more to relocate to a safer city. I was in a holding pattern. Saving, wanting, waiting. It was always something. I just couldn’t ever get my head above water. Was this living, I wondered more times than there were stars in the sky. And while I’m ranting to no one, generational blaming bull crap, my well rounded bottom. Getting screwed three ways to Sunday no matter what you did had nothing to do with a supposed overindulgence in avocado toast. Freaking morons. Who made up this bs? And most importantly, what lemming actually bought into that drivel? I snorted at the thought.

Sloughing off that depressing train of thought, I sighed heavily.

That building need to take some kind of leap, grew with each passing day. And yet, if life wasn’t holding me back, fear of failure filled in the gaps, snuffing it all out with a heaping helping of crap happening, until I was a bundle of quite nicely squashed dreams.

As a child I’d thought I could do anything, be anything. There was that feeling there was more out there, even more than this world, maybe. I’d been driven, of course, and the first goal had been to escape this tiny town and my alcoholic parents.

While that was lovely and, mission accomplished but for those guilt tripped family visits back, I thought on my daydreaming childhood moments almost fondly, nostalgic-like reminiscing to my head space back then. I’d thought life sucked back then. It had, but in an entirely different way to my current non-existent existence now.

I always wonder what I could have done differently. Should I have stayed in the crappier apartment or the house I’d been renting a room from before that with my klepto fellow housemates? Would toughing it out have helped me somehow or would I be even worse off than I am now? It could be worse, I well knew. Whether they were awful or not, I did have a bit of a safety net in the parents, even if it was only for a month at the most before they tired of me and pushed me out. I could be homeless... That sobering thought usually shut me up.

And I wondered why my parents depended on the bottle? They broke. I didn’t want to break. Some people bend, some break, some cycle in and out of a depressive state questioning their life choices, afraid to make it worse becaue they’re not quite sure they could handle worse- Cough.

Perhaps it was condescending to hold myself up above the broken folks, like I’d never tumble that far down, find myself at the bottom of a bottle, screaming at a spouse my children weren’t quite certain I actually cared for, or the kids for that matter, but this kind of introspection kept me living clean and paddling that much harder to keep my head above water.

Oh, how proud the folks would be to know the resilience they’ve unintentionally instilled in their child?

I’d had so many dreams once upon a time, from the ridiculous, preposterous, to the minimal, and everything in between. You know, before adulthood went and squished that happy place like a bug. I made too much money for assistance, yet I was too strapped for cash for much but the basics? Living alone gave me zero legs up, but I supposed that was my fault. My desire to relive my horrible housemates in a large house splitting the rent years were right up there with gouging my own eyes out, and I’d be hard pressed to allow a man I’d started dating for less than three years to move in with me.

Even then, it was all so much more than that. So much more.

Perhaps I needed some kind of word-from-the-Universe type of intervention. A sign… A… something.

No. This required something greater than that. A chuckle left me. Alien intervention. The only answer, I joked quietly, shaking my head as a grin quirked my lips. Nothing short of an abduction could save me now. Cue funky seventies horror movie music. Humming a little aloud, after one of my favorite aliens attack the world movies, I chuckled softly. Oswald and I had been all over the old school dollar movie nights at the old movie theater or catching the latest sci fi flick on the weekend. Total escapism at its finest.

Ren? You out here? Os called suddenly, the back screen door creaking open.

Cringing, I stilled. Damn. So much for my alien abductions filled fantasies. The probing would have to hold off ‘til later. Har-har.

Florence? he called louder.

If he stepped out he’d see me.

Right now would be nice, aliens, I grumbled under my breath. Holding my arms out, wiggling my fingers, I sighed heavily. Any moment now, crazy grays.

Florence...? Ren? Oswald tried again.

Ozzy? What is it? Do you see something? Rosemary called out loudly.

Nothin’. Go back inside, toot, he practically barked at her.

Okay, baby, she squeaked and quickly complied.

I cringed at that ish. I gave them three months before she started taking his sometimes caustic personality to heart and that backbone thickened. I loved my brother, but I wasn’t blind to how he was—a horrible blend of both of our parents at the worst of times, a halfway decent little brother when he pulled the pole out of his backside long enough to recall we’re all human and remembered to actually act like one. Os was a complicated creature. Years of our parents’ putdowns had damaged us both, irreparably, I feared, if we were to put a finger on the start of our lack of partners with staying power and commitment issues, but at the end of the day, after all was said and done, yes, that was a factor, sure, but we, each our own, decided what to do with all of that.

I tried to think I’d unpacked it and tried to move past it, but my lack of partners and poor taste in the few I did start something with would attest to just how little I was willing to put that to the test. Trust issues and avoidance, your table is ready.

Os bottled it up, drank, and hid his inferiority complex acting like he was Mr. Superior. Whatever got you through it, I guess. It wasn’t hard to figure why Oswald was the somewhat favored child over me, if they had to choose, and I was looked at like the AA pushing, loudmouthed narc of an eldest more often than not.

One thing Os didn’t do, bring up any or all of that crap, ever. There was something nice to that—something safe. And in that created safe space, we existed peacefully.

Rosie? Os called after her a moment later. I’ll be there in a minute, baby, okay? Go ahead and start without me, huh? His tone had softened to a more palatable murmur.

Okay! Rosemary called back, the sounds of her hurrying off pricking my ears.

Huh. That was unheard of with brother dear. Was he, gasp-gasp, really into his Rosie? As with anything, only time would tell.

Mom began caterwauling after Os about me, her voice hoarse and growing louder and louder, and I knew the jig was up. Sweet chocolate covered marshmallows, what now?! Leave me to my alien stars traveling, pricked and prodded in all the right kinda ways madness, will ya?!

CHAPTER 2

Ren

Finding myself wrangled into the real reason I was beginning to suspect Mom insisted we come down for Easter weekend—free labor—we were on our fourth batch of boiled eggs and going with no end in sight. The plastic eggs we’d filled and put in the buckets lining the wall while the first few batches of real eggs boiled and cooled were our crowning achievement. I’d even managed to smuggle a few chocolate covered marshmallows in my hoodie pocket for later.

As much as I’d love to whine, I was just glad my parents were too otherwise occupied to argue—meaning I wouldn’t have to lay in the pull out bed in the spare room later this evening and listen to them snipe and snap while I tried to sleep—to care.

Choosing a blue crayon, I was doodling a bunny and flowers on a still warm egg when Rosemary thought to break the lovely silence we’d settled into, only disrupted by Dad’s intermittent bear snoring as he snoozed in his chair in front of the TV with the news blasting.

The Easter bunny’s coming tonight, she chirped, like she was talking to little kids and not a table full of disillusioned adults. Whoooo’s ready?

Her childlike enthusiasm really wasn’t appreciated with our bunch. And she did this thing with her nose when she was excited that made me think of a critter.

Didn’t you know? I said into the awkward silence that produced as Os gave her a grunt in response.

Didn’t I know what? Rosemary piped up.

Thinking of that odd blinker in my otherwise perfectly lined up constellation, I