Free Viper's Hope (Anguis Defenders Book 1) by Stephanie West

he could have some sort of alien disease.
    "No." Viper said quietly.
    Hope almost felt bad, almost.
    Viper led Hope out of his suite and down the long tan hall. They walked for a while passing several other aliens, mostly male. The men bowed their heads to Viper as they passed but looked at Hope strangely, with wide shocked eyes, but refusing to make eye contact.
    Hope tried to look them square in the eyes. She felt like some sort of leper with the way they acknowledged Viper but ignored her like she wasn't there. Occasionally the men bowed their heads at her. She assumed it was a greeting so Hope did the same in return, not wanting to be rude to the few men who didn't ignore her.
    Here and there someone stared too long or came too close and earned a low feral growl from Viper. It seemed though that he only growled at men not the occasional woman. Was he warding them off? It made Hope feel a bit like a favorite chew toy.
    Hope noticed another alien woman being led by a man, his hand at her neck similar to how Viper held her.
    Viper followed the couple at a distance and entered a large three story vast domed hall. It had benches and strange plants with ponds and sand. The trees reminded Hope of Joshua Trees. The giant room looked like a desert garden.
    The alien man and woman veered off on a narrow path, to sit on a bench. Hope snuck a glance as the male nuzzled the woman's neck biting gently as she rested her cheek against his head. It was a tender gesture.
    "Is this how Viper views me?" Hope considered the similarities between how Viper treated her, and how the couple behaved.
    Her attention was suddenly captured by the large domed window and she stopped with a gasp.
    "Oh my god!" The sky was black with a million stars, and there was the curve of her blue planet. "We are in space."
    Hope started to shake as reality set in. It was just what she feared. There was no escaping this!
    "Come Hope. I will explain everything soon." Viper encouraged her forward his hand firm on her shoulder.
    "You bet you will!" Hope snapped and pulled away, still riveted to the sight of Earth impossibly out of reach.
    She just couldn't seem to suppress her bitchy side, and she really didn't want to. Viper had drugged her, kidnapped her, gone nuts and fucked her. It didn't matter if in the end she'd climaxed harder than she ever had, or he was being gentle and apologetic now. It was fucked up beyond belief.
    They entered a large room with a big table and several seats occupied by more aliens. There were several aliens like Viper but there were four very different creatures seated around the table. Hope assumed these must be the ambassadors Viper referred to.
    One looked almost like a praying mantis, another had striped orange and yellow fur with feline features, the third had a beak with tiny feathery hair all over, that stood up in a long blue mohawk. However it was the fourth that weirded Hope out.
    The last alien looked just like the picture of the standard alien. Big round bald head, pale almost white skin, large black oval eyes, and long skinny limbs.
    "Well I guess all those people had been right with their alien sightings." Hope almost snorted.
    This character wasn't any more strange than the rest but he gave her the creeps. Maybe it was all the abduction probing stories.
    Viper pulled out a seat for Hope, then sat down by her side.
    "I apologize for the delay." Viper said to the gathered group, suddenly appearing very professional. The others nodded. "How are your retrieval efforts progressing?"
    "Fifty percent of our ships are at capacity." The cat man replied.
    "We are almost full after having shifted inland from the Eastern continent." The mantis trilled.
    "Another two weeks and we will be ready to head off world with the humans." The birdman almost squawked as he spoke.
    What the hell! They were collecting people and planned on taking them off Earth. Hope bit her lip to keep from screaming.
    "The Morbo have started swarming many of the