My Alien King (Paranormal Romance Aliens) Read online

  Mia smiled at the screen. Having Cassie come be with her while she did this would be wonderful, but she knew it was something that she was going to have to deal with on her own.

  Amyface: Thanks, Cass. But I think I need to handle this alone for right now. Just until I know what's going on. Then maybe I'll come see you? I could use a vacation too.

  CC: or maybe we meet in Hawaii and have a real vacation.

  Amyface: Now you're talking. Anyway, I'm going to do some research on these doctors and then maybe try to get an appointment. I'll let you know how it goes.

  CC: i'm proud of you. take care of yourself, doll.
  Amyface: I'll try.
  Somewhat encouraged by her friend's support, Mia spent the next several hours going through the lists of doctors that worked with her insurance and were nearby. They all had a little blurb about them, but that wasn't really helpful.

  She didn't even know what to call what happened to her, so how would she even know who to look for?

  Her head was telling her to go to a medical doctor who would run tests and take blood and all that, but her gut was telling her that maybe there was something more psychological at work here.

  And ugh, that was what she had always been afraid of.

  Chewing on her lip some, she sighed and just decided to go for both options. If the doctor found something, then she could always cancel the appointment with the shrink. And if neither of them found anything, then...

  Well, then she didn't know what she was going to do.

  She lived alone now, and it had gotten much worse since she'd moved out of her parents' house, almost as if the presence of her parents had been holding back whatever this was instead of exacerbating it, like Mia would have assumed.

  The thought that no one would be able to figure this out scared her, but she didn't dwell on it. Instead she made the phone calls, making an appointment with the medical doctor for the next day and the shrink for the end of the week.

  Once that was done, she went to the kitchen and cooked to clear her head. She hadn't eaten since the pizza she'd had for dinner (and for some reasons she was always famished after one of her "episodes"), so she made a large breakfast with pancakes, eggs and sausage. Then sat down and demolished it.

  Aside from her episode and the fact that she was a senator's daughter, Amelia Hatcher thought she was a pretty normal woman. She liked to listen to music and spend time with her friends. She cooked when she was stressed out, and she worked as an illustrator for children's books. Her parents had been upset when she'd moved from their sprawling house in Maryland to a cute little town house in North Carolina once she'd finished with art school (and of course, they'd been upset that art school had even been a thing at all), but she wasn't worried about disappointing them as much once she was an adult.

  Her mother complained that they never saw her enough, and her father seemed to take the move as a personal insult, complaining that he couldn't very well talk about family values if he didn't have his family close by, but Amelia hadn't cared.

  She'd spent a very big portion of her life suffering in silence thanks to her parents, and she didn't think that the kind of emotional pain that had put on her was going to go away any time soon.

  And she wanted to be on her own, anyway.

  It was for the best, even if it did mean that her condition got worse.

  Mia was the kind of woman who never put very much effort into her appearance (the days of having to be dressed up and made up perfectly every time she left the house because someone might want pictures of Senator Hatcher's daughter were gone, thank goodness), and she made herself look good by her standards and her standards alone.

  There were very few things in her life that she had direct control over for so long that it made her almost anal about controlling the things she could. She worked for herself, technically, so she wouldn't have to answer to a boss. She lived on her own so she wouldn't have to deal with roommates, and she went where she wanted, when she wanted, with the exception of when her body wasn't under her control.

  If she thought too long about it, it started to get scary. After all, she had no idea what she was doing when she was asleep and losing time. She assumed that she was asleep, but then, she never felt rested afterwards and her head ached for hours later.

  For all Mia knew, she was robbing banks or leading some double life.

  All the more reasons why she needed to find out what was going on sooner rather than later. Putting it off for as long as she had already was doing nothing but making things worse, most likely.

  The next day, she had her appointment with the first doctor. She had a general practitioner that she went to for physicals and check ups, but for some reason she didn't want to go to him with this.

  She wanted to start clean with a new doctor who didn't know her and wouldn't have any preconceived notions about her.

  For some reason, she wanted to look nice for this, so she got dressed in a nice sweater and dark jeans, spending some time brushing her hair and putting on light makeup. Plenty of people had told her that she was attractive (not a beauty queen like her mother, but she would do). Mia was a Hatcher through and through with the bright green eyes that came from her father's side of the family as well as the strong nose and full cheeks. Her hair was almost black, it was so dark brown, and it was thick and shiny, falling in a curtain down her back, almost to her waist.

  Even though her mother had hounded her about getting contacts for years ("Why would you hide those lovely eyes behind glasses?"), she mostly kept wearing her glasses, liking the way they made her face look.

  She was average height and curvy, which Cassie said made her even hotter than her mother who was model thin and could wear a size zero. Mia had no opinion on it, really. She'd been on a few dates before, but with a secret like hers, there was no way she could really get close to anyone. How would she even explain what happened to her every other day just about?

  Shaking her head, Mia grabbed her purse and the list of symptoms she had written down the night before. Maybe it would be good to be able to explain exactly what was going on.

  "We'll have to wait for some results from the lab, Ms. Hatcher," Dr. Chung said. "But I don't think we're going to find anything that would explain your.... situation."

  Somehow, Mia wasn't surprised. "Oh," she said. "Alright."

  "You're perfectly healthy from what I can see. The only think I could think that would cause something like you describe is a psychological issue. As I said, we're still waiting for some scans and tests to come back, but." He shrugged.

  Mia tried very hard not to slump in her seat. It was a little silly how hard she had been hoping that it would be a medical condition. Something she could treat with medicine or something and then be done with.

  But of course it was all in her head. Of course it had to stem back to years of being ignored or overly doted on and her relationship with her mother.

  "May I suggest making an appointment with the in house psychologist?"

  Mia shook her head. "I've already got an appointment with one. I made two, just to cover all the bases."

  Dr. Chung smiled. "Sounds like good planning. I can write you a prescription for something to help with the migraines, if you like. But I'm afraid that's all I can do on this end."

  It was better than leaving with nothing, so Mia took the prescription and went to get it filled at the store while she shopped for comfort food.

  The next day, she was a mess. She didn't have the same negative perception of mental health issues that her parents had, but that didn't mean she was entirely comfortable with the prospect of having one herself.

  "Be reasonable," she urged herself as she sat in her car in the parking lot, counting down the minutes to her appointment. She'd arrived almost an hour earlier than she needed to be there, which was two hours before her appointment even started since she figured she'd need time to fill out paperwork. "If there is something wrong with you, then it's been wrong with you your whole life. There's no point getting worked up about it since having a diagnosis isn't going to change anything. Maybe there's some kind of pill for it. Maybe you won't be waking up on the floor anymore."

  That, at least, had to be worth whatever embarrassment or shame she might feel from something like this, right?

  When she couldn't stand it anymore, she got out of the car, slinging her purse over her shoulder as she made her way to the front doors.

  It was a nice little business complex area where the office was located, discreet at least. No massive neon sign with flashing letters urging people with brain problems to come on down.

  It could have been an office for anything. Insurance. Tax filing. Loans.

  At least no one would know as they drove by that she was about to go see a shrink.

  "Oh, excuse me."

  Mia looked up in time to see a tall man with violently red hair coming out of the door that she had been standing in front of. She moved quickly out of his way and flashed a quick smile. "I'm sorry. I was just standing there like an idiot."

  The man stepped out, shaking his head. "Don't worry about it. I figure these kinds of things take courage, right?" he grinned at her, flashing dimples.

  "Oh. Um. Yes, courage." Mia nodded. "Did you just have an appointment?" She blinked, suddenly horrified with herself for even asking something like that of a stranger. "I'm sorry, that was totally out of line and none of my business. You don't have to answer that."

  The man shrugged, still smiling. "Don't worry about it," he said again. "It's nothing to be ashamed of, you know. Needing to see a doctor like this. But, no. I was just having lunch with an old family friend who works here. They don't make doctors here that can handle all I've got going on." He tapped his head and shr
ugged again. "Good luck in there."

  "Thank you," Mia said faintly, watching as the man headed across the parking lot.

  She'd been so distracted by his hair and those dimples for most of the conversation, that she hadn't even noticed until right at the end that his eyes had been gold. Something about that color stirred her memory, but it was like trying to move through dense fog and the longer she thought about it, the farther away it got. Plus, it was giving her a headache.

  Shaking herself, she continued into the building.

  Dr. Madison Prince was younger than Mia had been expecting. She was a tall, portly woman with dark skin and warm eyes, and she gestured Mia into the room with a soft smile.

  "Please, come in. Can I get you anything?"

  Mia looked around at the room. It was set up like an office, of sorts. There was a desk in front of the window that looked out over the rest of the complex, but the focal point were the chairs in the middle of the room.

  Both looked plush and comfortable, dark leather meant to make the people sitting in them relax.

  She noted that both chairs were identical, though she assumed that the one closest to the desk was for the doctor and the one closest to the door was for her.

  In case I need to run out, she mused, and then sighed. "No, thank you. I'm fine."

  "Then have a seat, and we'll get started." She gestured to the chair that Mia had correctly identified as the one she was meant to be sitting in, and Mia sat down.

  Dr. Prince's degrees were framed on the wall, and there were plants and even a cascading water fountain in the corners, and overall it was a very soothing atmosphere.

  Mia didn't relax.

  She leaned back in the chair and put her purse in her lap, watching as the doctor got a notepad and took her own seat. "Now, I know when we spoke over the phone, you mentioned you were experiencing black outs?"

  "Yes," Mia replied. "I... I guess that's the best term for it, although it's not like I pass out or anything. That I know of, anyway."

  "Why don't you explain exactly what happens?" Dr. Prince suggested.

  "Okay. Usually I'm doing something. The last time it happened I was going to the front door so I could get something out of my car. One minute I had my hand on the doorknob and the next I was waking up on the floor in a completely different room with no memory of getting there. And it's always little things like that. I'm washing dishes or doing laundry. On my way from one room to another. It's never when I'm laying down or anything."

  Just talking about it with someone who she knew wasn't immediately going to start yelling at her or giving her worried looks like her parents or Cass might have was helpful, and Mia let herself relax just a bit.

  "Hm," Dr. Prince said, writing something down. "How long of a gap do you usually have? And how long has this been happening for?"

  Mia let out a breath and settled fully into the chair. "The last time it was about... nine, ten hours. It usually varies. I don't think it's ever been shorter than maybe five hours or longer than ten. It's about the same amount of time I'd spend sleeping, but I'm never rested when I wake up. This has been happening to me since I was six or seven."

  Dr. Prince let out a low whistle. "That's a long time to be having this experience. I imagine it's unnerving for you."

  "That's putting it mildly. I just. I wish someone would record me or something so I could see what I'm doing, but my parents think I'm making it up for attention, or at least they're telling themselves that I'm making it up for attention because it makes them feel better, and my best friend lives on the other side of the country. No one else knows."

  "You've been keeping this a secret since you were a child, then?"

  She nodded and in a halting voice explained how she had tried to get help when she was in middle school but how her parents had put a stop to that. "I've been to the doctor to see if it was a medical thing, but they couldn't find anything that would cause this. So I'm just at a loss, and I don't know what's wrong with me. But it gets worse every year, and I either want it to stop or just... I want to know why it's happening."

  The room was silent for a long moment and Mia glanced up from her lap to look at the doctor. She was sitting there, studying her notebook with an intense expression before she put it aside and then met Mia's eyes.

  "I think I can help you, Amelia," she said, voice soft.

  "You can? Just like that?"

  She nodded. "You aren't the first person to come into this room and tell me a story like that, and I'm more than certain you won't be the last. It's something that has happened to many people over the years. You're from Maryland, correct?"

  Had she put that on a form or something? Mia couldn't remember. Or it could have just been that the woman recognized her as her father's daughter. "Yes," she said slowly. "How did you know that?"

  "It's something of a phenomenon. The amount of people from the area you grew up in who have this same condition. Some might call it a coincidence, but rarely do things like this happen on such a large scale if it's not happening for a reason."

  "W-what does that mean?" Mia asked. More people had this same thing? People she'd known? People she'd grown up with? She knew Cass didn't have it, but what if everyone had just been keeping quiet because they didn't want to seem like they were crazy? What was going on here?

  "It means that what's happening to all of you is external. It's not something caused by any flaw or aberration within you or any of the other people who experience this," Dr. Prince explained.

  "What is it?" Because that was the big question, wasn't it? Hope was flaring wild and dangerous inside of her at the thought that maybe this meant there wasn't something wrong with her, but she'd yet to hear an explanation for what was going on.

  "You're being abducted."

  Mia frowned. "What?"

  Dr. Prince held her hands up, as if she already knew what Mia was thinking. "I know how it sounds, believe me. And if I weren't acquainted with people who have shown me how true it is, I wouldn't believe it myself. But. That's what's happening. The time that you're losing, that's when you with them. I'm still not sure where they're taking you, but they take you and they... probe your memories, if I understand correctly. They're looking for someone."

  "They being... who?" Mia asked dryly. "Human traffickers? Aliens?" And to think that she'd convinced herself that this was a good idea. Now she was sitting here being mocked by someone who was supposed to help her.

  "You don't believe me," Dr. Prince murmured.

  "Of course I don't believe you!" Mia exploded, frustration taking over. "I came here looking for help and answers and maybe something that would make what happens to me less terrible. I didn't expect to be ridiculed."

  "Ms. Hatcher, I can assure you that I am not ridiculing you."

  She snorted. "Right, okay. Because I'm supposed to believe that little green men come through the window and beam me up for a few hours every other night, right? And what, they stir around in my head for memories of my parents ignoring me and then send me back home?"

  "I do know how it sounds, but I really-"

  Mia was on her feet in a matter of seconds. "I'm leaving," she said. "This has been a colossal waste of my time, and if you charge me for this, you'll be hearing from my lawyer. I'm sure I don't need to remind you who my father is."

  "No, Ms. Hatcher. I'm well aware," Dr. Prince sighed. "I'm sorry I couldn't be of more help to you."

  "I'm sure you are." She yanked the door open and marched through it, letting it slam behind her. Clearly people having fits in this building wasn't uncommon because the receptionist didn't even look up from her computer as Mia stormed by and out of the doors.

  Her anger and embarrassment carried her across the parking lot and into her car, and she was pulling out onto the highway before she calmed down enough to relax. Her posture was rigid and her fingers were clenched hard on the steering wheel.

  Looking back, she was a little ashamed of how she had reacted (honestly, when had bringing her father up in a conversation ever helped anything?), but she thought most of it was justified. For a minute there, she'd actually thought that she was going to get some answers. She'd actually thought that maybe some relief was in sight. That other people knew what she was going through and that things would be okay.