Her Dual Surrender Read online

  Her Dual Surrender

  The Dually Captivated Saga

  Ines Johnson

  Those Johnson Girls

  Copyright © 2016, 2020 Ines Johnson.

  All rights reserved.

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  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior permission of the author.

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  Manufactured in the United States of America

  Cover Design

  Jacqueline Sweet Designs

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  About Ines Johnson

  Chapter One

  “Ye though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”

  Beulah watched her sister’s lips as she said the prayer aloud. Esther’s face was ashen white, her hands shook from the tips of her fingers all the way to her wrists.

  “You are my hiding place,” prayed Esther. “You preserve me from trouble.” Her breath came in quick pants and the words of the Lord were shrill as they left her mouth. “You surround me with songs of de…of de…”

  “Of deliverance,” Beulah finished for her.

  Beulah’s voice was as steady and calm, as always. She was the older of the two. Her entire life, she’d soothed Essie’s fears, shined the light to scare off the monsters under the bed, and sung her back to sleep after a nightmare.

  Beulah pulled her sister into her arms now. She buried Esther’s head beneath her chin and stroked the back of her head. Instead of singing, Beulah began another prayer.

  No song could wake them from this nightmare. The monsters weren’t under the bed. They were on the other side of the door.

  “It’s like a roller coaster ride,” said a small, frightened voice.

  Beulah looked down at the small child huddled in her lap. Big brown eyes widened in fear as they peered up at her.

  They were in the Heavens. They were somewhere up in space, in the abode of God. But God was nowhere to be found.

  The three of them had been snatched up by demons. Then rescued by a second group of demons. And now they were on a spaceship being chased by God knows what.

  “I don’t like roller coasters, mommy. Can we get off now, please?”

  Beulah pulled her daughter into her bosom. Eva clutched her spindly arms around Beulah’s neck and sniffled into her chest. Between her sister’s panting and her daughter’s sniffling, Beulah had no space for her own fears.

  “The righteous cry and the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles,” Beulah chanted, hoping the prayer brought peace to her loved ones. She hoped it would quell the shaking of her own spirit.

  “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted,” she continued. “He saves those who are crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.”

  The door to their cage opened with a swish. It wasn’t a cage with bars. There was no discernible way to get in or out, so Beulah deemed it a cage.

  A demon didn’t enter. A human did. A human woman.

  The woman was brown-skinned with thick, curly hair. She wore long robes, like the demons. Beulah had first seen the woman when they were held captive on another ship. Back on that ship, the woman had come to rescue them. The woman told them that her name was Shanti. Shanti and two blue demons had freed them from that first ship, only to take them captive onto this ship.

  “How are you all holding up?” Shanti had a grimace on her face as she surveyed the three of them huddled together. Her voice was filled with both compassion and concern.

  “You said you would take us home,” Beulah said.

  “I know.” Shanti came into the room. The door materialized behind her. “But the Eloheem can’t just now. You see, we’re being chased.”

  “I thought the demons that took us were dead?”

  “One died,” Shanti confirmed. “My mates decided to take the second on board.”

  Beulah covered Eva’s ears. Partly out of the mention of plural marriage. Partly out of the mention of the continued presence of the crazed demon who’d taken them while they were out on a nice walk through the woods.

  “He’s locked away safe where he can’t harm anybody,” said Shanti

  “Then who’s chasing us?” Esther’s voice was a shrill wail. “And why?”

  Shanti came over and sat down on the large bed that dominated the room. “You ever hear those stories about little, gray men abducting humans for experiments?”

  Esther’s eyes widened. She turned and hid her head back in her sister’s chest alongside Eva.

  “They want to abduct us and experiment on us?” Beulah asked, her calm slipping along with the volume of her voice.

  “No,” said Shanti. “They want the Eloheem.”

  There was that word again; Eloheem. That’s what their abductors called themselves. It was laughable. Beulah had seen a Bible written in the Hebrew language. The Hebraic word for angels was Eloheem.

  “Why?” Beulah asked.

  “I can’t explain it now.” Shanti looked around the room distracted. There were no windows, just pale walls. “I just came to check that you are all alright -under the circumstances.”

  “We’re not all right,” said Esther. “We’ve been taken by demons. But God will deliver us and he will smite down his adversaries. He will give His angels charge concerning you, to guard you in all your ways. The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him, and rescues them.”

  “All righty then.” Shanti looked at Esther with concern. “Not all of you are okay.”

  Beulah could see that her sister was coming unraveled. Esther crossed her arms over herself. She gripped her shoulders, rocking back and forth, reciting various scriptures. Eva blinked rapidly at her aunt.

  “Can I help, Shanti?” The voice came from the door.

  Inside the opening stood a child-sized version of their demon captors. The brown-skinned, little boy stepped into the room. His coned head was bowed. He straightened and smiled at them.

  “I can give you peace.” His English accent was thick as though he were from the Far East. He held his hands out as he came closer.

  Eva stuck out her hand to his. Beulah watched transfixed as their fingers came closer and closer. She felt a calming buzz rise up in the room, like a welcome haze of humidity.

  And then Esther screamed, which broke the spell.

  Beulah yanked Eva’s hand away. Eva gasped at the force of her mother’s grip. The little alien boy’s large eyes widened.

  “Niao,” Shanti’s arms came around the boy as though to protect him from the humans. “Now is not the time, honey.”

  Niao looked crestfallen; shame-faced. His eyes latched onto Beulah’s. He
r fear evaporated and her heart wanted to reach out to the child. Beulah had a soft-spot for children.

  “I am sorry if I frightened you,” the child said. “I would never harm you. I only wanted to help.”

  He looked close to tears. His lip trembled on his last statement. It left Beulah feeling ashamed of her behavior. Before she could offer any consolation, the child dashed out of the room.

  Shanti sighed after him. “No one on this ship will hurt you. We’re trying to help you. You’ll have to trust me on that.”

  A loud bang sounded throughout the room, vibrating the walls of the space.

  “What was that?” screeched Esther.

  “I think we’ve been hit,” said Shanti.

  Chapter Two

  “Damage report,” shouted Hsing-I, the leader of the Eloheem tribe and Commander of the Mothership.

  Yehfe peered over his brother, Pakua’s, shoulder as the male searched the ship for impairment.

  “The Grey’s ship rammed into our stern,” reported Pakua.

  While his brother and the other Yin looked at the screen’s report, Yehfe reached out with his hearts to the life form in the opposing ship. Distress called back to him.

  The solo fighter ship had chased them through the asteroid belt between the red planet the humans called Mars and the brown planet they called Jupiter. The Grey ship may have been one of those patrolling the womb rock known as Terra, or Earth as the humans called their own planet. It was illegal for higher life forms to breach the rock without permission. Abducting human women was definitely not a permitted activity.

  “It looks like the Grey’s ship is going down,” said Pakua.

  “We have to save him.” Yehfe leaned over the console to see the image of the ship tumbling into the abyss. He reached out to the life form and felt its suffering.

  “That creature tried to send us to the next life.” Pakua’s voice was like the angry growl of a low animal.

  “I do not believe it was purposeful.” Yehfe shook his head at his twin. “We are traveling through an asteroid belt. By ramming into us he would only hurt himself.”

  Pakua glared at the screen that showed the other ship’s position. The ship was falling into the ether.

  “We can not let an innocent creature die,” said Yehfe. “It is not in our nature.”

  “It is not in your nature,” said Pakua.

  “Perhaps if we bring him aboard, we can reason with him.”

  The Yins gathered recoiled at Yehfe’s suggestion. He was the only Yang on deck.

  “What other options do we have of making clear our name with the Neterians? Perhaps this can be our chance to redeem ourselves with the elders.”

  Hsing-I’s eyes narrowed at Yehfe’s words. Their tribe was deemed tainted after a vicious attack sent some of their parents into madness. The surviving Eloheem had all been children at the time and were only concerned with their grieving and their own survival after the attack.

  Now, most of the males on board were full grown. They were done grieving and they were tired of running. They remembered that there was more to life than just survival.

  Hsing-I and his brother, Chen-Na, had recently mated. Yehfe knew the brothers wanted to find a place to settle the Mothership; to begin their work and start a family of their own. Yehfe wanted the same thing. Though he couldn’t say the same for his own brother.

  “If we rescue the Grey, perhaps we can get him to listen,” Yehfe continued his plea directly to Hsing-I. “Then, once he’s healed, we can release him so that he might report back to the Neterians.”

  Hsing-I and Pakua exchanged a look. They weighed Yehfe’s proposal. Yehfe could see Pakua’s rational brain make the calculations. Yehfe breathed a sigh of relief when the calculations came out weighing in the despairing soul’s favor.

  Yehfe left Hsing-I and Pakua to determine the logistics of the rescue. When Yehfe entered the hall, he encountered Chen-Na. The two males bowed to each other. Before Yehfe could update Chen on the matters at hand his mate, Shanti, approached.

  Chen’s face transformed at the sight of her. The pale blue Eloh took his mate into his arms and pressed their foreheads together. Shanti pressed her lips to Chen’s and Chen allowed the intimacy. Yehfe averted his eyes, but the image burned him in the gut.

  “How are our guests?” Chen asked his mate.

  “They don’t feel like guests,” Shanti replied. “They feel like prisoners.”

  “It is only temporary, my only. Until we can return them to the Earth. It is not yet safe to turn back.”

  “We will need to return them soon,” said Yehfe. “Especially the mother and child. Her mate will be sick with worry.”

  All of the Eloheem knew the pain of separation between parents and children. Even after many revolutions, the deaths of their parents still felt like an open wound. Yehfe could only imagine the human male’s suffering. If it were his family that had been taken, he would move the Heavens to find them.

  He looked at the connection between Shanti and Chen. The power of their bond glowed bright. Yehfe had to look away again from their dazzling light. The glory of it burned in his hearts. Yearning was a gas cloud fogging his eyes.

  Hsing and Pakua came out of the control room. Hsing bypassed Yehfe and cut a path to Shanti. He scooped his mate out of his brother’s arms.

  Chen let her go with an amused sigh. There was no hesitation, no jealousy. Eloh brothers were bonded deeply to each other, and that bond transferred to their mate.

  “We’re going to rescue the Grey,” Hsing told his mate after touching his lips to hers.

  “Is that safe?” she asked as she caressed his face.

  “It has the potential to make us safer. That is always my goal, little one.”

  Shanti worried her bottom lip, but she nodded. Hsing put an arm around Chen. The three stood there in solidarity.

  Pakua stood away from Yehfe, off on his own. Pakua turned his face away from the affection between the triad. He crossed his arms and balled his fist.

  Pakua had closed himself off to any form of connection shortly after he and Yehfe lost their mother and Yang father. The bond between the brothers had never been the same again. But still, Yehfe reached out a hand to his brother.

  “Be safe, Pakua.”

  Pakua evaded his brother’s touch. He offered Yehfe a nod of acknowledgment before turning for the helipad, followed by Hsing.

  Yehfe turned to Shanti. “Is there anything I can do for the females?”

  Shanti shook her head. “They’re not very trusting of Eloheem at the moment. They just need some time.”

  “Time is a luxury they can’t afford if they want to return to their family and make it whole again.”

  “Why don’t you go and console Niao,” she said. “He tried to help and they rejected him. He took it badly, poor thing.”

  That was Yehfe’s job, taking care of the younglings on board. There were two sets of youngling brothers; Niao and Nse, and Cheng and Lung. Yehfe loved taking care of the young ones. It gave him a sense of peace, a sense of purpose. He wanted a family of his own, but he knew it wasn’t likely to ever happen with his brother so closed off and no females to approach.

  And wasn’t it just his karma that two, grown females had landed in his presence; fallen right out of the sky. One was out of reach due to her bond with another man and the child of that bond. But perhaps the other would be amenable?

  Perhaps if he could speak with her, charm her. Then maybe Pakua would come around. The bonding pull was a strong instinct. Yehfe would need to find a way to speak with the unbound female. Esther, Shanti had said her name was. Perhaps she was the key to his dreams of a family.

  Chapter Three

  “They’re going to rape us.”

  Beulah looked into the corner of the room to see if Eva had heard her aunt’s ravings. Thankfully, the child was sound asleep now that the ship ceased its roller coaster of a ride. Beulah turned back to her sister.

  “These creatures have no
fear of God.” Esther paced the room. Her thick-soled shoes made no sound as they rhythmically hit the floor.

  As children, they’d been taught to take their shoes off upon entering a home, even if it wasn’t their own. It was a sign of respect. It was also to keep the red clay of the rural Georgia earth from neighbors’ carpets. Only Eva had removed her shoes since coming onboard this ship.

  “I saw how they looked at us.” Esther paused in her pacing. “They want to defile us and put their demon seed inside of us so that we’ll breed them an army of devils. I will die before I open my womb to any of them.”

  Esther’s voice was frantic, high-pitched, as she began pacing again. Her eyes were wide, her blonde hair disheveled. Beulah reached out to her sister, but Esther shooed her away.

  “Essie, calm down. No one has tried to hurt us. They’ve only tried to help.” Beulah almost convinced her rapidly pounding heart that she believed her own words.

  “They’re tricking us, Bee. Can’t you see it?”

  “But the blue demon, Shanti’s… husband. He attacked the crazy brown one.”

  Back on the ship, when the blue demon -Chen he’d said his name was. When Chen entered the door behind the dark demon, his alien face had registered shock at seeing them there. Then rage when he turned his big eyes to Eva. He’d produced a dagger. Beulah had turned away from the fight. When she’d reopened her eyes, the dark demon was on the ground and Shanti and another blue man were coming into the door.