Free Alien Bond (Alien Attachments) by Sabine Priestley

CHAPTER ONE

    Kara Heroshi leaned back in the lawn chair and let the sun warm her skin. There was nothing, right here and now, to suggest the lives of humankind had recently changed forever.  
    London’s Hyde Park hummed with tourists and locals. And them too, no doubt. She winced as two small children bolted past, nearly knocking over her soda. Their mothers followed a few paces behind, not bothering to reprimand them.  
    Kara adjusted her chair to sit upright so she could eat her lunch. Everything about the park looked so normal. She reached for her hotdog and took a moment to savor the flavor. “God, these are good. Evil, but delicious.” She was a purist, relish and mustard—perfect. Her friend Zoe, who’d taken her under wing when Kara arrived in England, preferred to desecrate hers with chili and onions. Kara wrinkled her nose. There was no accounting for some people’s taste.
    They weren’t the only ones who’d decided Hyde Park was the place to be. One did not waste a sunny autumn day in London stuck indoors. Kara pulled a strand of hair out of her mouth and held it up. The once brilliant red had faded. Time for a color change. She eyed the hairs critically. Definitely not mustard yellow. Maybe purple this time. She sucked off the offending condiment and tucked the hair behind her ear.
    The vibrant greens of summer had faded into autumn. This was the time of year when you soaked up the sun at every opportunity.  
    “Hard to believe it’s been almost a year,” Kara said.  
    “Do you see any?” Zoe stopped to let a dab of chili fall to the ground between her feet.  
    Kara laughed. “Classy, Zo, very classy.”  
    Zoe shrugged.
    “I think there were a few by the arch on our way in.” Kara swept her hair up in a high pony tail to get it out of the way. “Hard to be sure.”
    “I never thought I’d feel sorry for beautiful people,” Zoe said.  
    “They can’t all be so good looking.”
    “Every one I’ve seen has been.”
    “Still,” Kara said, licking her fingers, “I had a guy the other night at Shepherd Market tell me I looked like a Sandarian.”
    Zoe snorted. “That’s got to be the worst pickup line I’ve ever heard.”
    Kara fixed her friend with a wide-eyed glare. “I told him that’s because I was. You should have seen the look on his face. He so wanted to believe it.”
    “You’d think your Steampunk attire would have been enough to clue him in.”
    “Please,” Kara said. “First of all, he wasn’t that bright, and second, Steampunk rocks. It’s only a matter of time before they try and join our awesomeness.” A bit of relish dropped from her lips and landed in the middle of her cleavage. “Nice.” She fished it out and flicked it onto the grass. “Can you imagine one of their ship’s captains decked out in Steampunk garb?”  
    Zoe burst out laughing, sending bits of chili flying.  
    “Class act, Zo.”
    “Your fault,” Zoe said. “But that would be totally awesome.”
    “I know, right? Can’t you just see it?”
    They laughed, and again Kara thought how weird it was to feel so normal. People still asked, and would probably ask for the next generation, “So where were you?” It was the conversation starter, the ice breaker, and the common ground all humans claimed. A little over a year ago, the now famous Cavacent clan had made their presence known. First to governments around the world, and then to all mankind. They came from a planet called Sandaria and told of a fallen empire. As though ripped from a science fiction novel, they spoke of a Galactic Trade Organization, an interstellar military, and other alien worlds. They claimed to have been guarding Earth for hundreds of years with an elite team called Earth Protectors. EPs for short. The entire clan had relocated to Earth some fifteen years ago. They made it clear that without their presence, Earth, or at least the humans living here, would have been wiped out long ago. And then the refugees came.