Primal: A Dark Sci-Fi Reverse Harem Romance (Alpha Unknown Book 1) Read online

  Primal: A Dark Sci-Fi Reverse Harem Romance

  Penelope Woods

  Contents

  Reader: Be Warned

  Introduction

  Prologue: Adeline

  1. Adeline

  2. Adeline

  3. Cadmar

  4. Adeline

  5. Magnus

  6. Adeline

  7. Magnus

  8. Adeline

  9. Donovan

  10. Adeline

  11. Cadmar

  12. Adeline

  13. Magnus

  14. Adeline

  15. Adeline

  Epilogue: Adeline

  Penelope’s Dungeon

  Leave A Review

  About the Author

  Penelope Woods

  New Release!

  I am his temptation - I belong to him.

  Click Here to Read Today

  Contents

  Reader: Be Warned

  Introduction

  Prologue: Adeline

  1. Adeline

  2. Adeline

  3. Cadmar

  4. Adeline

  5. Magnus

  6. Adeline

  7. Magnus

  8. Adeline

  9. Donovan

  10. Adeline

  11. Cadmar

  12. Adeline

  13. Magnus

  14. Adeline

  15. Adeline

  Epilogue: Adeline

  Penelope’s Dungeon

  Leave A Review

  About the Author

  Penelope Woods

  Reader: Be Warned

  If you are easily offended or under 18, please stop reading.

  Introduction

  Her mind will never speak to me again.

  I am free. High above the mast the moon

  Rides clear of her mind and the waves make a refrain

  Of this: that the snake has shed its skin upon

  The floor. Go on through the darkness. The waves fly back.

  Wallace Stevens

  Prologue: Adeline

  Year: 1989

  Location: Project Onyx, Top Secret Government Black Site

  The road stretched out in front of me, winding like a black serpent, tar glowing underneath the burning sun. I had seen this road before, but only in the photographs scattered across my father’s desk. He was the one who pointed the highway out, proudly boasting that only a few dozen cars had ever traversed the mountainous region.

  My father was a different man. A quiet man. A man who held secrets. Every Sunday morning, my mother would try to coax him out of his shell. She was a religious woman and practically on the other end of the spectrum from my father. A vibrant soul with a strong attitude, she could never get him to open up. Or go to church.

  “This is my own version of going to church,” he would tell my mother. She had always been more conservative than he, and his absence would bother her no end. Truthfully, it affected us all, but I couldn’t remember much of those days. In fact, I had blocked out the first portion of my life almost entirely.

  To my father, prayer was something of a fool’s errand. Not only was he an explorer and a scientist, he was the government’s leading scientist, working for the CIA. To him, church meant nothing. There was so much more the world could offer than words to a higher power.

  On the drive, I remembered him telling me great stories about the world. About breathtakingly advanced technologies found in the middle of the sprawling deserts of Iran. Giant monoliths from ancient times strategically built by ancient cultures around the world. Those spectacles kept my father’s attention. Church? The entire universe was a beautiful and impossibly perfect church.

  Of course, my mother’s anger was never about the sacred rituals, or even about the message itself. In the grand scheme of things, morality meant very little to her. Sometimes, she could be more punishing than the devil himself. What angered her most was the fact he wouldn’t spend time with her. He was always on some top-secret expedition. And he sure as hell wasn’t inviting her to any government sites.

  Already, I was destined to become an explorer, born a scientist like my father. “Somewhere,” he once told me, voice lowered, “There is a place...”

  I would always interrupt him with wonder and glee. “What place?”

  My mind would run with the wildest imagery. Giant butterflies floating through the Amazon rainforest. Poisoned frogs and howling monkeys. Unimaginable monsters and beasts, forced to live in the heart of darkness, forced away as civilization took a firm grip on the future. Where did they all go, and why couldn’t I witness them?

  My father would kneel before me and poke my nose before leaving on another of his expeditions. I’d always well up in tears because I knew it would be months before I’d get to see him again, the man I absolutely idolized. My wonderfully complex father. “Deep inside the forests, there are portals,” he’d whisper.

  I nearly choked the first time I heard him say that word. I was just seven years old, but I knew everything there was to know about them. At least, I thought I did. The mere mention of one took my breath away.

  “Portals?”

  He’d nod and place his finger over his lips to make sure Mommy couldn’t hear. He’d looked toward the living room, see she was consumed by another daytime talk show, then open up and tell me bits and pieces. “Gateways. Entrances to another realm. We...”

  He stopped himself, knowing he had gone too far, but he was never one to hold back the truth.

  “Daddy, please tell me,” I’d beg.

  A devious smile formed on his face, furrowing his gray mustache against his nose. “Okay, here’s the deal. You’re going to be a good girl and finish all of your homework before mom even asks you. Then, you’re going to church on Sunday. If you stick to the script, I’ll show you something that will blow your mind.”

  That month, I worked to be the kindest, most attentive daughter my mother had ever seen. Instead of collecting bugs in the backyard, I would smile and finish all of my assignments. I would walk into that church singing the hymns louder and with more conviction than ever.

  And when I arrived home, I ran into my dad’s study to tell him how good I had been that month. But my dad wasn’t home, and I should have never barged in like that. That’s when I saw them, the scattered papers and newspaper clippings that both frightened and shocked me.

  I poured through the articles, stopping to gawk at hand-drawn illustrations of inconceivable creatures. Were they human? I couldn’t tell. They were definitely humanoid, but as to their instincts, brain mass, and overall moral compasses, I couldn’t be sure. I was just seven years old. However, even at that young age, I wanted to know more.

  Despite being frightened, I vowed to find them, knowing it was my calling to do so. If there were multiverses and other realms connecting this world together with the next, I had to keep venturing outward.

  I packed my things, and, months later, my father agreed to sneak me into one of the black sites. Somewhere far away, there was a massive energy block dug out from the center of an old city center. It was so old it had been buried and built over. That was where the portal to the beasts stood.

  They had to be aliens.

  I had no doubt in my mind that’s what the beasts were. They looked like massive statues. Sure, there was no elongation of the skull, no gray skin and buggy eyes. They were massive, like warriors, and must have adapted to the atmosphere in a more primitive way than I thought. A part of me had to wonder how much of them were just like us.

  Maybe they were us...

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nbsp; The road twisted and turned until we came to a stop. “Wait here,” my father said. Near the edge of a cliff was a chain-link fence, adorned with barbed wire and armed guards. In the center stood an outpost tent, but a few MPs stopped us before we could enter.

  “Walter Hathaway?” One of the soldiers shook his hand and guided him toward a dirt lot. “We’ve been expecting you. You’ll never believe what we found out here, sir.”

  “Is the gateway secure?” my father asked.

  “Well, you might want to just take a look,” the man suggested.

  My father tickled the back of my ear and whispered, “I know it’s going to be hard for you, but I need you to promise me one thing.”

  I nodded. “Okay, Daddy.”

  “Stay out of the way. No opening any doors. No wandering around. Do you hear me? This is a government facility. If word got out you found a way inside, I wouldn’t just lose my job. I’d lose a limb.”

  The image horrified me, so I agreed. “Daddy, I won’t.” But I needed to know.

  He smiled and nudged my chin with his thumb. “Someday, you’ll be in my position. You’ll come to understand everything there is to know.”

  Another man leaned in the window. He had a bright smile, but I could tell he was putting it on for me only. What was he trying to hide? “Beautiful, why don’t you stay in the car while your daddy has a talk with the big boys?”

  I watched as the men walked away, leaving me with one young soldier, a man who had no idea what to do with me. Technically, I wasn’t allowed here at all, but I wasn’t afraid of breaking the rules. My dad was kind of a big deal around the facilities.

  For an hour, I stayed seated in the old family Ford. But, as time dragged on, I couldn’t sit still. I wanted to see what my dad was so interested in. Most of all, I wanted to see an alien up close.

  I wondered why he even took me on the trip to begin with. I was too young to form a compelling argument. I was also a girl, which meant no one took me seriously here.

  As I watched the doors slide open to a brightly lit hallway, I saw all sorts of personnel and life-saving electronics. I was hooked. But, without a personnel badge, they weren’t going to let me through the facility’s doors.

  The curiosity took over. They should’ve known better. I was my father’s daughter, after all.

  I sat inside the old Ford, pretending to be on my best behavior. Keeping my focus on the MPs, I smiled and even waved, pulling out one of many comic books I had thrown into the back seat throughout the years. The crunchy noise of radio waves came through on the MPs’ walkie-talkie. His focus fell onto other matters, as I didn’t seem to pose any immediate danger.

  “You’re fucking with me,” he said. “A malfunction? How does an artifact malfunction?”

  Someone’s voice echoed through the device, “The power source, idiot. I need you to help me with the breaker.”

  I perked up, listening intently without giving myself away. Clearly, they had kept their own employees in the dark, which made sense. Continuing on, he shook his communications device and groaned into the air. “Okay, okay. I’ll be there in two-seconds, but it’s got to be quick.”

  I lowered my comic book and scanned the horizons from the vehicle. There was no one guarding the front entrance anymore, but there were a few guards at the top of the towers. I took a deep breath and lifted my open comic book before my eyes again. Walking forward, I ducked behind another official, just barely able to keep up. No one reacted to me. I was just a little girl. I wasn’t a threat.

  Except, they didn’t know the threat might have been closer than they were willing to admit.

  As soon as I stepped in front of the automatic doors, I expected alarms to go off but, when nothing happened, I walked right through into a white hallway. The whole place reeked of importance.

  Luckily, the crowd of scientists in the hallway largely ignored me. I roamed the halls and gazed up at the glowing electronic systems, so impressive and foreign to my knowledge. All of this was so new. This was science. Real science, not the boring stuff kids had to learn in school.

  As I walked, the crowd thinned out. Still, no one said a word. It looked as if the hallways stretched for miles. Eventually, there wasn’t anyone in sight, and the lights were dimmed enough for low visibility. The air around me turned into a buzzing silence. Where was I headed?

  The more I knew I should turn around, the more I wanted to see. I dropped my comic book as darkness thickened around me. The lights dimmed, in and out, an electrical problem. Underneath my feet, the floor vibrated. In front of me was the end of the hallway, and I just knew I had to open that door.

  Without thinking of the consequences, I placed my hand on that golden knob, softly turning until the inner mechanism clicked. I let go, but the door creaked open eerily, leaving me staring into a dark and empty room. In the center, a crystal emanated a red glow.

  Its gravity pulled me in. It wasn’t just curiosity guiding me anymore but some deep and longing obsession. Like I was meant to know what powers it contained.

  I reached out and touched the smoky air around the sharp edges of crystal. My hand distorted as soon as I did it, so I immediately pulled back, collecting my calm before trying again. This time, I grabbed hold of the glowing rock and squeezed. A flash of electricity paralyzed me. I was shocked. For a split second, reality shattered into a multitude of pieces. I was floating through time and space itself, floating through a dreamscape.

  Another world, a reflection of our own...

  “Adeline! What are you—” My dad ran into the room, freezing up once he had seen what I had done. “My God, you’ve touched the artifact. You’ll disrupt the connection...”

  It was too late. I saw them.

  In the disorienting moment of being pulled from my consciousness, I had been transported into another realm entirely. I opened my eyes and felt their dreams. The terrifying beasts my father would never talk about again were sleeping. Were they alien in origin? Human? I couldn’t be sure what they were, but they were nestled together in a swath of darkness, debilitated and bound by a ray of blue and blinding electricity. In their sleep, they howled horribly, and every part of my body froze.

  The three massive bodies rumbled awake, eyes opening. Their vision pierced me. Their electrified chains broke, and they rose and moved toward me. I immediately fell to my knees, pleading for my father to save me. I turned to find him, but he was nowhere in sight. I was somewhere else now, somewhere very far away. But I could still hear him calling my name.

  “Adeline,” the biggest one of the bunch whispered.

  Another lurched forward, reaching out with his massive hands. ”Someone has come!”

  Six primal eyes stared back at me in awe. Their pupils were red and glowing brighter. They seemed to be analyzing me, but who could be sure? Their breathing was heavy, and they sniffed the air like wild dogs. “She will be forced away soon,” the brawny one said.

  “W-Who... What... are you?” I asked, choking on my tongue.

  “Come back for us,” he muttered.

  I felt a pair of hands grab my shoulder, pulling me through the tunnel I had just entered. As I fell back into my father’s arms, the usual feeling of gravity entered my body. I looked at the few scientists in the room. My father had saved me.

  “Dad!” I screamed, tears trailing down my cheeks. “I saw them. The... aliens!”

  My father picked me up and ran across the hall as fast as he could. I had never seen my father run with such alarm. He wheezed loudly, but he made it to a large metallic red door marked: Decontamination and Immunization Room.

  “No, Daddy! Don’t make me!”

  I screamed. I bucked and tried to strike a deal. I dragged my heels across the slippery off-colored tile, but I was far too small to make an impact against my father. More scientists came into the room, wearing white and yellow hazmat suits. They horrified me more than the beasts I had just witnessed.

  “She needs to be disinfected and immunized at once,�
� one man said, pulling my father back despite the level of concern on his face.

  “Addie, I’m sorry. I’m—”

  A glass frame split the room in half after they pulled my father to one side. Alarms rang chaotically. The echo stung my eardrums. Faster than expected, the man in the hazmat turned on a hose. “Arms out!” he demanded. I did as I was told, weeping as the disinfectant hit my body and face. When I was fully sterilized, more scientists came in. They pricked my fingers, took my blood, and forced me to sleep in their facility for days.

  Oddly enough, that’s where my mind blanked out. As I grew up, I tried to think back on that day, but nothing was clear. I could barely see their faces. I couldn’t remember what the government agents asked me, what they did to me, or how they treated me. All I knew was I was terrified, and I suddenly wanted to go to church with mother instead of becoming a scientist.

  But my life had changed forever that day. I could never forget how those beasts looked at me.

  It was like they were waiting for me. It was like they needed me.

  1

  Adeline